Grizzly men's tennis to go match-by-match in must-win weekend
4/13/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
April 13, 2011
The University of Montana men's tennis team will continue its must-win hunt for a Big Sky Tournament berth with matches vs. the Big Sky's No. 2,3 and 4 teams Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The Grizzlies head to Bozeman Friday for a 3 p.m. match-up with the 4-1 BSC Bobcats before hosting 5-1 NAU at 1 p.m. Saturday and the Weber State team that shares a 3-2 fourth-place league tie with UM Sunday at 11 a.m.
With just a week remaining in conference competition, Big Sky leader Sacramento State is the only team that has clinched one of four slots in the Big Sky Championship Tournament to be held April 23-24 in Bozeman. The Hornets have also clinched the No. 1 seed in next week's championship with an 8-0 undefeated record in league play.
With just a single loss, the Bobcats sit in favorable position relative to the Grizzlies, who suffered an unlikely 5-2 loss at Eastern Washington early in the season. While it may seem that the Grizzlies can hold securely to a 5-2 win over the Bobcats earlier in the season, senior Josh Smith guaranteed otherwise, saying, "The result of that match is erased from our memories. We greatly underestimated a team earlier in the year, which put us in a difficult position. We will be prepared for the best MSU team possible Friday, one playing on their home courts and for the opportunity to compete in a championship that they will host. Everyone involved will be up for this match"
In the previous Grizzly-Bobcat matchup, UM took a doubles sweep, followed by wins at No. 1 with Carl Kuschke, No. 3 with Mike Facey, No. 4 with Andrew Warren and at No. 5 with Mikolaj Caruk. Finding the necessary wins over a MSU squad with a lot of momentum may be more difficult Friday.
For one the top Grizzly doubles team of David Cysneiros and Kuschke, which pulled a close, 8-6 win over Bobcats Pawal Turzanski and Fletcher Keyes, has been mixed through the season, making the new matchup of Kuschke and Josh Smith a novel combination vs. the Bobcats at No. 1. Cysneiros now combines with Caruk at No. 2 for a 7-2, 3-0 BSC record.
Complicating things for Kuschke at No. 1 singles will be Turzanski, who has taken his sole Big Sky conference loss to No. 31 Kirl Harbatsiuk for a 4-1 record. The Polish native previously fell 6-4, 6-2 before Kuschke, but will be a dangerous weapon given the late-season momentum of the current Bog Sky Player of the Week.
Kuschke said, "I'm excited to play Pawel again. He is a great competitor. It's definitely harder to play at Bozeman than most places, and he competes well on every surface. Thinking of the conditions and the few matches that I have played against Pawel, I know what I have to do to win, and I'm hoping to find it Friday."
Though winning 5-2, the Grizzlies took a loss in their February match vs. MSU at No. 2 as senior Josh Smith fell to Bobcat Fletcher Keyes. Smith is on somewhat of an upswing and will have two consecutive wins under his belt before the 3 p.m. start Friday. The Cape Town, South Africa native has proven tough vs. many top competitors, leading to a 4-1 league record in the No. 2 spot.
NAU, a team which finished 2010 at 6-2 in a three-way Big Sky tie with UM and Weber State, will come to Missoula Saturday. The matchup will be the first since UM contributed a home loss to an undefeated Lumberjack squad in March of last year. The 2011 NAU team has taken some notable wins, including a 6-1 result over Eastern Washington. Following the Grizzly-Lumberjack matchup, NAU travels to face the Bobcats, a matchup which could determine the final team to contest the Big Sky Championship Tournament.
The Lumberjacks stack up quite closely with UM, the two teams having played comparable schedules through the dual season. The Flagstaff team holds its strongest record with Robin Pezzuto at No. 3. The Lumberjack is 5-1 in League play and has played to a 7-8 overall record. Comparatively, the Grizzlies will look to 9-6 Carl Kuschke at No. 1 for their most wins of the season as well as Smith's 4-1 record in league play at No. 2.
With the Lumberjacks logging only two league losses per doubles team, UM will need to catch the early momentum of a doubles point if they are to win against a team that has had 12 of 17 matches end in results of 6-1 or 7-0.
April 10, Northern Arizona played to a 4-3 win over Weber State, giving the Wildcats their second league loss of the season. That match showed the Lumberjacks taking wins at 3-6 after dropping the doubles decision to WSU.
In tough Big Sky competition senior David Cysneiros has come through for UM time and time again, pulling in important clinching points under pressure at Nos. 5 and 6. In 2010 Cysneiros went 6-1 in Big Sky play, and can be counted on to deliver over the final matches of his tenure as a Grizzly.
The Wildcats should give UM the most trouble at the top of the lineup. In 2010, a much-improved Weber State team popped UM from the Big Sky lead late in the season with a narrow 4-3 defeat of the Grizzlies. Depending upon the outcome of Montana's first two matches this weekend, Sunday's match could easily come down to a Missoula showdown for the final Big Sky Championship slot.
Kuschke said, "It is definitely exciting for us with things coming down to the very last weekend, possibly even the last match. Though, we do have a long season behind us and it would be nice to have things all tied up at this point.
"Coach Nord has a famous question where he asks `how do you eat an elephant?' The answer is `one bite at a time,' and we need to do just that now. In our eyes, we can only see to this Bobcat challenge on the horizon. It is definitely one match at a time for us."
The Grizzlies, who are likely to play indoors at the Bobcat Tennis Center Friday, have been practicing indoors this week at Missoula's Peak Racquet Club, staying sharp on the artificial surface in anticipation of the Bozeman match up.
