LEWISTON – Every inch of space on and around the Court 1 grandstand at Bates College’s Wallach Tennis Complex was taken.

Students climbed the back of the wooden structure to get a better view.

Some wheeled a cart to one end of the court with a homemade sign that included the American and Sri Lankan national flags.

They all got what they were waiting for, and let out a roar that resonated across campus.

Bates’ top doubles team of Amrit Rupasinghe and Ben Stein overcame an early break in the first set and hung on through a tiebreak in the second to post a 6-4, 7-6 (3) win over Trinity University of Texas’ Oliver Gaines and Ryan DeSantis on Friday.

“They were amazing,” Stein said of the crowd. “It’s great to see so many people turn out to support us. It was a lot of fun.”

So fun, they get to do it again Saturday. The duo advances to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division III Men’s Tennis Championships, scheduled for 2 p.m., when the pair will face No. 3 seeds Filip Marinkovic and Andrew Thompson of Middlebury College.

But Friday was Bates’ day.

With the teams on serve and Rupasinghe serving, Trinity managed a break.

“I wasn’t nervous, but I just wasn’t hitting,” Rupasinghe said. “We’ve been practicing perfectly, but, I don’t know what was going on today.”

Rupasinghe and Stein rebounded in the next game, broke back and then broke again at 4-4 to take a 5-4 lead. An incredible get on a Trinity lob by Stein set up set point, on which Bates delivered to take a one-set lead.

In the second, both teams held serve through to 6-6, with each saving some break points along the way. With the enormous crowd behind them, Stein and Rupasinghe rallied with a mini-break early. Perhaps the defining point of the tiebreak came with Bates leading 3-1.

Rupasinghe got a deep forehand and slugged the ball back to the middle of the court, almost knocking Trinity’s net man backward.

“I was holding back the whole match,” Rupasinghe said. “I don’t know why, but there, I knew I had to go. When we try to be cautious, that’s when we get into trouble.”

Five points later, after another solid shoe-top return by Rupasinghe, Bates advanced.

Play whittled the field of 32 singles and 16 doubles pairs to eight of each Friday. Notable on the singles’ side of things was the demise of nearly every seeded player. Seeds two through eight all lost, leaving top-seeded John Watts of Washington University in St. Louis as the only remaining seeded player.

Bowdoin’s Garrett Gates, the No. 5 seed, lost, but teammate Stephen Sullivan upended No. 3 seed Michael Goodwin of Emory University to reach the quarterfinals.

Marinkovic also advanced on the singles side for Middlebury, as did Charlie Cutler of Washington.

The top four doubles seeds all made it through to Saturday’s quarters.

Play is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. for singles, with doubles set for 2 p.m.