Griz tennis men knock off Cats in Bozeman

Saturday, February 20

Bozeman, Mont.

11:00 AM

Montana

Montana State

2/20/2016 6:07:00 PM | Men's Tennis

By: gogriz.com

The Montana men's tennis team picked up its first win of the spring season in a nonconference matchup with the Montana State Bobcats on Saturday, picking up the doubles point and finishing with a solid 5-2 victory.

The Grizzlies now move to 1-1 after falling to the Pac-12's Utah Utes two weeks ago, while the Bobcats fall to 1-6 in the lead up to Big Sky Conference action.

After only the team's second outing of the season, Griz tennis coach Kris Nord was excited to get ball rolling in the win column.

"It feels great, especially when it's the Cats at their place. It's a tough place to play, so we we're happy with the win. We played great doubles, so we were really happy with our start."

If you call great doubles sweeping the point in three straight games, then the Grizzlies did just that.

Yannick Schmidl and Alexander Canellopoulos picked up the first win over MSU's Flink/James combo 6-4, followed by Semion Branzburg and Peter Mimnagh-Fleming defeating the Bates/Sitar duo from MSU 6-3. The doubles point was cemented by Tomasz Soltyka and Victor Casadevall who beat MSU's Ceolin/Harvala pair 6-3 to put UM out to a 1-0 lead as a team.

In the singles, the Bobcats earned a point back in the No. 1 spot, when MSU's Kellen Bates defeated Mimnagh-Fleming in three games (3-6, 6-2, 7-5).

UM bounced back Branzburg breezed passed MSU's Alex Flink in two games (6-3, 6-1). The Grizzlies then rattled off three wins at the bottom of the order to seal the victory with Canellopoulos, Casadevall and Schmidl each taking a win for the Griz.

"We have a few things we know we can work on, but we have a good crew of guys, we just have to keep getting a little better. But I'm happy with where we're at right now."

The Griz are back on the road to open Big Sky play at Northern Arizona next Sunday, Feb. 28. Before the team heads to Flagstaff, the Griz will get one more nonconference tune up opportunity, taking on Grand Canyon University in Phoenix on Friday, Feb. 26.

RESULTS
Singles Competition
1. Kellen Bates (MSU) def. Peter Mimnagh-Fleming (UM) 3-6, 6-2, 7-5
2. Semion Branzburg (UM) def. Alex Flink (MSU) 6-3, 6-1
3. Harry James (MSU) def. Tomasz Soltyka (UM) 6-2, 6-4
4. Canelloponlos (UM) def. Rok Sitar (MSU) 7-6, 6-2
5. Victor Casadevall (UM) def. Mateus Ceolin (MSU) 6-7, 6-1, 6-3
6. Yannick Schmidl (UM) def. Dylan Harvala (MSU) 6-1, 6-7, 6-1

Doubles Competition
1. Schmidl/Canellopoulos (UM) def. Flink/James (MSU), 6-4
2. Branzburg/Mimnagh-Fleming (UM) def. Bates/Sitar (MSU), 6-3
3. Soltyka/Casadevall (UM) def. Ceolin/Harvala (MSU), 6-3

Order of finish: Doubles 2-3-1, Singles 2-3-1-4-5-6

Montana squad at Bozeman
1) Peter Mimnagh-Fleming
2) Semion Branzburg
3) Tomasz Soltyka
4) Alexander Canellopoulos
5) Victor Casadevall
6) Yannick Schmidl
Ex.) Petar Barcot