BULLDOG BITS

Men’s Tennis

GAINESVILLE, Fla., Mississippi State men's tennis suffered its first loss of the season on Saturday, falling 4-2 to No. 16 Florida in the finals of ITA Kickoff Weekend on the Gators' campus.

No. 107 Petar Jovanovic and Carles Hernandez each claimed straight-set singles wins for the Bulldogs, who dropped to 5-1 this year.

Jovanovic, the reigning Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Week, won 6-3, 6-4 over Will Grant for his ninth consecutive win. Hernandez beat 51st-ranked Nate Bonetto 7-5, 6-2 to claim his third victory over an opponent ranked in the ITA top 60 this season.

MSU was on the brink of adding another ranked singles win to its ledger as Ewen Lumsden topped No. 93 Jonah Braswell 6-4 in the first set and was in a second set tiebreaker when the Gators clinched the match.

Gregor Ramskogler took Togan Tokac to three sets before bowing out. Tokac edged Ramskogler in a tiebreaking first set 7-6(1) before the graduate from Austria roared back with a 6-0 win in the second before ultimately falling 6-2 in the final set.

Benito Sanchez Martinez battled Lukas Greif but fell 6-4, 7-6(1) and Nemanja Malesevic lost 6-0, 6-3 to Axel Nefve as Florida improved to 3-1.

The Gators also got the doubles point as their 10th-ranked tandem of Tokac and Tannapatt

Nirundorn defeated Lumsden and Michal Novansky 6-3 and No. 43 team of Braswell and Greif scraped by Jovanovic and Ramskogler 7-5.

State returns to action on Friday as it hosts Tulane at 3 p.m.

Women’s Basketball

Mississippi State women's basketball is back on the road to close out its final two-game road trip as it looks to get back into the win column and move above the .500 in Southeastern Conference play when it takes on Georgia in Athens today.

The Battle of the Bulldogs will tip at 1 p.m. and will be shown on SEC Network.

Mississippi State stands 15-6 overall and 4-4 in the SEC, while

Georgia has records of 14-8 overall and 3-5 in the league.

MSU has recorded 10+ assists in 18 straight games and 20 of 21 games this season. It's the longest program streak since at least the 2006-07 season. State leads the SEC in assists per game (16.9) while ranking 24th nationally.

Women’s Tennis

Mississippi State's women's tennis team is gearing up to face Tennessee State in a doubleheader today.

The opening match is slated to start at 10 a.m. and the next match beginning at 2 p.m. inside the Rula Tennis Pavilion.

MSU has won 57 straight nonconference home matches dating back to the 2012-13 season.