Flushing, NY – After falling in the first set and his team leading the overall match 4-2, freshman Jayquan Gooding (Woodside, NY/Cardozo) battled back to take the second and third sets and most importantly give the Hunter College Hawks a 6-3 victory over the College of Staten Island to advance to the CUNY Athletic Conference Men's Tennis Finals where the Hawks will square-off with the top seeded Baruch College on Saturday morning at the USTA Tennis Center in Flushing, NY.

Gooding, alongside freshman Roy Forberg (Brooklyn, NY/AOSR) opened up the day with an 8-0 win at second singles, while the team of sophomores Noel Marrero (Bronx, NY/Lehman) and Gian Arceo (Flushing, NY/Bayside) won third doubles 8-6 and following a loss at first doubles, the Hawks led the overall match with a score of 2-1.

Junior Jerome Guce (New City, NY/Ramapo) made the score 3-1 with a 6-1, 6-0 win at third singles and Forberg then made it 4-1 with a 6-1, 6-0 win at fourth singles. In need of just one more win to clinch the match, Gooding put the Hawks over with his 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 win at second singles and Arceo closed out the match with a 6-7 (6-8), 6-4, 7-6 (7-3) win at sixth singles.

This will be just the second time that Hunter and Baruch will meet in the men's tennis championship match in the 24 years of the tournament's existence. That last finals meeting was in 2005 with the Bearcats taking a 5-4 decision over the Hawks. In their only meeting of the season, Baruch stood on top 8-1.