The Denison men's tennis team completed one of their biggest upsets in years on Friday, knocking off No. 8 ranked Carnegie Mellon, 6-3 on their home court in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Denison, who entered the season ranked 25th in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association national rankings, recently fell out of the rankings following consecutive losses to Chicago, Rhodes and Emory. This victory will make a strong case for the Big Red to re-enter the rankings and potentially earn the program's ninth NCAA postseason berth in May.

Denison got things going by taking two of three in doubles action thanks to wins by Matt McErlean and Tyler Cempre at No.1 and Jared Connolly and Tim Martin at No. 2.

The Tartans evened the score in singles play when Juan Guerra fell to Duke Miller, 6-2, 6-3.  Denison's Tom Cawood responded in the fourth-flight with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Harsha Rao.

At No. 6, Connolly brought the Big Red to within one point of the victory after he topped Johoo Yu, 6-2, 6-3.

That set things up for the match of the night which was won by Denison's Evan Verbofsky over Bobby MacTaggart in three sets, 6-2, 3-6, 7-5.  Verbofsky trailed MacTaggart 5-1 in the third set and proceeded to rattle off five-straight games to clinch the match for the Big Red.

Feeding off the energy provided by Verbofsky, Andrew Marczak came back from a 2-0 deficit in the third set to win in a tiebreaker.

Denison improves to 5-3 with the win while Carnegie Mellon drops to 9-6.  The Big Red will return to the court on Saturday when they face No. 25 Mary Washington, in Pittsburgh, Pa. at 1 p.m.