ROME, Ga.  A 6-2, 6-3 victory Saturday afternoon at the Rome Tennis Center lifted Whitman seniors Robert Carter and Zach Hewlin into third place at the 2017 ITA Division III Oracle Cup, as the pair downed the nine-team national bracket's No. 3 seeds, Steven Koulouris and JT Wynne, from Skidmore (Pa.) College.

The tandems were on serve through 2-1 of the first set before the Whitman pair earned a service break, then added a hold to take command at 4-1. A repeat of that formula, breaks and holds, provided the Blues duo with the set victory.

The next set played out much like the first, with both teams holding serve through 2-1, and a break and hold lifting Carter and Hewlin to a 4-1 advantage.

Service holds the rest of the way may have been the less exciting way to go, but that was just fine for Carter and Hewlin, who gladly accepted the mundanity of the final four games as long as it brought home the win.

Winners of the ITA Northwest Regional doubles championship, Carter and Hewlin were slotted into a play-in match to open the Oracle Cup on Wednesday. Their straight-set win there put the duo into the quarterfinals against its top seeds -- Gustavus Adolphus (Minn.) College's Mohamad Alhouni and Patrick Whaling -- but the play-in match warmed up the Blues Brothers who disposed of the top seeds by scores of 7-6(3), 4-6 and 1-0(4).

The victory advanced the Whitman tandem into the semifinals where a one-set lead slipped away in the third-set match-tiebreaker, pushing the pair into Saturday's third-place match.

Earlier in the afternoon Saturday the duo that downed the Whitman pair in the semis -- Tyler Raclin and Jeremy Yuan of the University of Chicago -- captured the doubles title by rallying back from a first-set loss to win the next two sets and the crown.