Courtesy of Norfolk State Athletic Communications


NORFOLK, Va. – When the spring sports season was shut down, it marked the end of a decade of Norfolk State athletics. From the fall of 2010 to the spring of 2020, it was a 10-year stretch that saw countless highlights across NSU's 15 total sports. Many of those programs' greatest achievements – since NSU made the jump to NCAA Division I in 1997 – came during this decade.
 
Over the course of these last few weeks, we are going to finish spotlighting those storylines right here on NSUSpartans.com. Each week, we'll choose a different sport(s) and take you down memory lane before we get set to start a new decade of excellence. In addition, head over to our Twitter page (@NSUSpartans) where fans will have the opportunity to vote for what they think is the greatest highlight per sport. At the end, they will also be able to vote for the greatest overall highlight in NSU athletics during the past 10 years.
 
We've got a double dip of tennis this week, and we'll start it off with the men's side. We've narrowed it down to five storylines from the past decade that we'll focus on, in no particular order.
 
A.) Norfolk State has had a lot of success in tennis since the program started in the early 1990s, including after NSU joined the MEAC. But in 2013, it captured its first MEAC regular season crown. The Spartans won three of their four Southern Division matches to share the regular season title with South Carolina State and Florida A&M. NSU had come close before, including finishing second overall in the league in 2006 and '07 when it was a round-robin format. But it had never claimed first place before that 2013 season. For his efforts in just his second season, Nate Feldman was named the MEAC Coach of the Year, a first for the program.
Read more about NSU clinching a share of the 2013 Southern Division title.
 
B.) In the first two years of the decade, one player stood out among the rest. Arsenio Culver was a force to be reckoned with at the MEAC level. He was a three-time first-team All-MEAC honoree, including as a sophomore in 2010 during the previous decade and then the following two years during this most recent one. He went 44-21 in dual singles matches and 43-18 in dual doubles matches during his Spartan career. As a sophomore, he was ranked in the ITA top 20 in the Mid-Atlantic Region, and he and teammate Ben Marks were ranked in the top 10 in the region in doubles his senior year in 2012. He and Marks defeated tandems from such schools as ODU, Delaware, Liberty, Temple, James Madison and Richmond, to name a few, during their careers.
Read more about Culver's career at NSU.
 
C.) NSU shared that 2013 regular season crown thanks in part to a significant win during the year. On Feb. 9, 2013, the Spartans defeated five-time MEAC champ South Carolina State by a 4-3 margin at the indoor courts at ODU. In fact, the Bulldogs were in the midst of a stretch in which they won 11 of 12 MEAC titles that were awarded during a 13-year span. Making the win even more significant was that the Bulldogs had not lost a conference match in three seasons. The Spartans won four of the six singles matches to defeat S.C. State for one of the biggest wins the conference saw during the decade.
Read more about NSU upsetting S.C. State in 2013.
 
D.) Along with Culver, another player made a significant impact on the program during the last 10 years. Dzmitry Zyhmantovich was named the MEAC Rookie of the Year in 2013, and a year later he was voted the MEAC Player of the Year. He was named to the All-MEAC first team both years, and he became the second Spartan player ever to be named the MEAC Player of the Year. In fact, he was the second of three Spartans to earn the rookie of the year award during the decade along with Igor Braga in 2012 and Benedikt Henning in 2016. Zyhmantovich went 28-10 in dual singles matches during his two years with the program, helping to lead it to new heights. After helping the program to the regular season title his freshman year, his sophomore year in 2014 was highlighted by another big accomplishment that will be spotlighted next.
Read more about Zyhmantovich earning the 2014 MEAC Player of the Year award.
 
E.) In 2014, Zyhmantovich and company led NSU to a second-place finish in the Southern Division. But the Spartans advanced to the MEAC Tournament final that season for the first and still only time in program history. Norfolk State topped Coppin State in the first round, 4-0, and then Bethune-Cookman in the semifinals by the same score. After waiting an extra day due to rain, NSU took on South Carolina State in the final. Despite a valiant effort, the Spartans came up short in a 4-1 loss. Still, they finished the year 14-7 for their best record in seven years, and advancing to the tournament final for the first time since joining the MEAC marked another significant step for the program.
Read more about NSU falling in the 2014 MEAC Tournament final.