Men's Tennis Signs Brothers Mathieu and Pierre Garcia to NLI's

PORTLAND, Ore. --- University of Portland men's tennis head coach Aaron Gross announced that brothers Mathieu and Pierre Garcia (Montlucon, France) have signed a National Letters of Intent and will join the Pilots next fall. The highly rated international prospects will join previously signed Steffen Dierauf and Jamie Fisher as part of the incoming class. The twins will join the Pilots as freshmen in the fall of 2014.

"We are really happy to have the Garcia brothers join our team," Gross said. "They were heavily recruited by many top schools in the U.S. and we feel fortunate that they chose Portland. We graduate four incredibly important players to the program this spring and now we have added four really exciting prospects for next season. They will have big shoes to fill, but we feel really good about the quality of players that are coming here.

"The Garcia's are rated very highly in France, which is a very strong tennis country," Gross added. "They have an amazing amount of experience for players that won't turn 18 until next June. The last week has been really big for us. We still hope to add more strong players to next year's team, but it is great that we have a really good nucleus of players set for 2014-15. At this point we can put all of our attention on helping the special group of seniors that we have right now accomplish their goals this spring."

The current Pilots concluded their fall schedule and are now preparing for the spring dual season which kicks off January 16 at Washington. Returning All-West Coast Conference senior Ratan Gill anchors an experienced lineup that returns five of its top six players from last season.