Montana
Nevada
Montana falls short against Nevada
4/2/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis
The Montana Grizzly men (7-7/ 6-2 BSC) stuck around until the bitter end on Thursday against Nevada (7-10) in Las Vegas, dropping a close match 4-3.
The match came a day after a loss to nationally ranked UNLV, a match in which coach Kris Nord was disappointed in his team's doubles effort. He mixed up the line-up slightly to get his guys some experience, and was pleased with how his guys reacted.
"Our doubles was horrible yesterday; it was much better today," Nord said. "We went with different line-ups and we started off fast. We were up a break in every single match, so to lose the doubles point obviously lost us the match."
Nord said that the doubles point was the deciding factor, and his team had a great chance to win it.
"We had it on our rackets, we just didn't finish at one and three," Nord said. "We were cruising along. There was a time where it looked like we would win all three matches, and that's a deciding point, giving the doubles point to them because we had it in our hands."
In singles, it was the freshmen on Montana's roster that got the job done at the bottom of the line-up. Yannick Schmidl stayed hot with a straight-set win at No. 6 to give the Griz their first point of the day. Then, Victor Casadevall and Alexandr Rudenco both earned comeback victories after dropping their opening sets.
"Those guys really played tough," Nord said. "Schmidl got off the court first, but Rudenco had a huge comeback. He was down 5-2 in the third and won it 7-5 so that's great effort by him to come back and get the point. Casadevall, same thing, he lost a tough tiebreaker and then he played great tennis for the next hour and a half. It's great getting wins out of those young guys."
The Griz had a chance to win the match at No. 3 singles, but a comeback effort from Nevada's Ryan Andrada against Peter Mimnagh-Fleming spoiled the Grizzlies' upset dreams.
"The match kind of stands at three and Peter had a great chance to beat Andrada, who is a real good player for them, but he fell a little bit short in the third set," Nord said. "But he was right in it and it was fun to watch."
The Grizzlies mixed up the line-up, but Nord said that it was just an experiment in case of injury or sickness.
"We wanted to try something new, in case we have an injury or somebody is not feeling well," Nord said. "I want guys comfortable playing with somebody else. We've been doing it at practice a little bit too. I think if they just go play good doubles it doesn't really matter who their partner is at this point, we have seven guys to choose from and I feel comfortable putting anyone out there."
Montana 3, Nevada 4
Las Vegas, Nevada
April 2, 2015
Doubles
1. Chargui/Allan (UN) Branzburg/Mimnagh-Fleming (UM) 6-4
2. Schmidl/Rudenco (UM) def. Poustie/Sunago (UN) 6-4
3. Bumgardner/Margitfalvi (UN) def. Soltyka/Fisher (UM) 7-5
Singles
1. Moez Chargui (UN) def. Tomasz Soltyka (UM) 6-1, 6-2
2. Andrew Poustie (UN) def. Semion Branzburg (UM) 6-1, 6-2
3. Ryan Andrada (UN) def. Peter Mimnagh-Fleming (UM) 1-6, 6-3, 6-3
4. Victor Casadevall (UM) def. Robert Allan (UN) 6-7, 6-3, 6-4
5. Alexandr Rudenco (UM) def. Mile Cilic (UN) 3-6, 7-5, 7-5
6. Yannick Schmidl (UM) def. Robert Margitfalvi (UN) 6-4, 7-5
Players Mentioned
