UM tennis makes championship showing in Cheney
9/27/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
UM results
The University of Montana men???s tennis team found success at the Eastern Washington/Gonzaga Classic Friday-Sunday in Cheney with semifinal appearances by Carl Kuschke and Josh Smith in singles as well as a Kuschke/David Cysneiros appearance in the championship final in doubles play.
The 2009 event showed four Grizzlies eliminated from main draw play in the round of sixteen. ??This past weekend, Kuschke entered play as the number one seed and enjoyed great success through his semifinal match before falling with a second set tiebreaker to Bryan Thorpe of the Portland Pilots.
Second-year Grizzly Josh Smith made his semifinal appearance as well, defeating two University of Portland Athletes along the way. Freshmen Eric Braun played through the ???B??? draw to a championship match where the Hellgate grad fell 6-2, 6-0 to Flavio Malagutti of host school Eastern Washington. ??
Cysneiros and Kuschke took commanding doubles wins in the rounds of 16 and in their quarterfinal match. After progressing through a semifinal due to an Portland walk-over, Kuschke and Cysneiros lost their championship match to Chong Zhi and Scott Sullivan of Gonzaga.
The Grizzlies play again next week at the Boise State Invite. There, four Griz will take on many of the same teams, including the top four from the No. 56 Vandals, who missed play in Cheney for the Baylor invite this past weekend.
