Griz ranked fourth in Big Sky preseason poll
1/20/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
In the first coaches poll created for the 2015 Big Sky Conference tennis season, the University of Montana Grizzlies received 87 points, good enough for the fourth spot.
The Griz, fresh off their first ever Big Sky Championship last season, received two first place votes and trail only Big Sky rookie Idaho, Sacramento State and Weber State.
Coach Kris Nord, now in his 33rd year with Montana, is not too concerned with preseason polls.
"We're fourth, but it really doesn't matter to me to be quite honest," he said. "I'd rather have us seeded lower to get the guys fired up to get them ready for the spring because it's going to be a tough go."
Not only does Nord wish his team was seeded lower for motivational purposes, but he readily admits he lost a lot of talent from last year's championship squad and believes the rest of the conference has gotten better.
"They might have us a little high," Nord said. "Our conference is vastly improved with Idaho in and some of the teams we saw this fall."
The goal for Nord is not to win the regular season championship, but to make it to the Big Sky Championships in April and go from there.
"My theme to the team is let's get to the Big Sky Championships and then see what we do once we get there," he said. "But getting there is not a given right now. I'm trying to get the guys to recognize our conference is tougher. We're real young and we have our work cut out for us just to get there."
One spot ahead of the Griz with 101 points and two first place votes is the team they took down in last season's Big Sky Championship, Weber State. Two All-Conference players, Jakob Gewert and Todd Fought, return to a Wildcat team that went undefeated during the regular season a year ago.
Sacramento State is tabbed second best. The Hornets are a perennial power in the Big Sky conference and may have been one of the best teams in the Big Sky had they not encountered injuries. They have five of their top six singles players back this season.
The top team in the Big Sky is Idaho, who rejoins the conference after leaving in 1996. Idaho won the WAC Championships in 2014. They're new to the conference, but that doesn't mean the Grizzlies haven't met them before.
"We see them a lot anyway," Nord said. "Last year we matched up with them great if we had our full line-up. This year, having seen them in fall, they're real tough. They have three or four new faces and they're all quality players. I think they deserve being one of the top two teams."
The young Montana team just resumed practice after a long winter break. They have a week and a half to see how much the players worked during the break.
"We just started hitting together," Nord said. "We're trying to just see what everybody did individually. We're trying to determine who got after it and worked out and who possibly didn't."
Utah State and Utah await Montana at the end of the two weeks. The Griz will make the trip south to take on the two non-conference opponents. Coach Nord believes Utah State will be a tough opening challenge.
"I think they're one of the strongest teams on our schedule," he said. "Clancy Shields, their coach, has done a real good job of recruiting. We split matches with them last year and they're vastly improved this year so that's going to be tough."
The tough schedule doesn't end during the Utah trip, however. The Grizzlies next match is against Portland State, another team Nord believes is much improved from last season.
"I think the two most improved teams we've seen from last year to this fall were Utah State and Portland State, which happen to be two of our first four matches," Nord said.
The Grizzlies are familiar with a difficult early season schedule, as they faced a similar slate last season. When asked about the difficult matches early on, Nord said he would rather force his guys to play up to their opponent than to start the season off with easy matches.
"Last year worked real well to play a tough schedule and I'm hoping it works the same for us this year," he said. "I don't think we need automatic wins on our schedule. I'd rather have our guys pushed and have our weaknesses exposed. Non-conference should give us an idea of what we need to work on."
Montana returns junior Semion Branzburg, who was First Team All-Conference last season after a 9-1 regular season. Junior Tomasz Soltyka also returns from last season's title squad, as does sophomore Peter Mimnagh-Fleming.
The roster for Montana doesn't feature a single senior. Branzburg and Soltyka are the only juniors. Alex Braun of Missoula joins Mimnagh-Fleming as the only two sophomores.
The rest of the line-up is composed of freshman. Zach Fisher, Alexandr Rudenco, Peter Szentes and Tom Witteveen will all be fighting for playing time.
2015 Big Sky Conference Preseason Poll
1. Idaho (5) 109
2. Sacramento State (2) 103
3. Weber State (2) 101
4. Montana (2) 87
5. Northern Arizona (1) 85
6. Montana State 79
7. Portland State 57
8. Northern Colorado 53
9. Eastern Washington 48
10. Idaho State 36
11. North Dakota 21
12. Southern Utah 12
