Grizzlies make quick work of North Dakota

Friday, March 11

Missoula, Mont.

2:00 PM

Montana

North Dakota *

3/11/2016 5:08:00 PM | Men's Tennis

By: Montana Sports Information

The home fans were treated to a show Friday afternoon, as Montana dominated North Dakota 7-0 in the first home match of the year for the Grizzlies. It was the first conference win for Montana.

"It's nice to get our first conference win and it's nice to not be traveling," coach Kris Nord said. "I think our guys were a little amped up to start, but we played pretty well."

The Grizzlies clinched the doubles point with wins by Yannick Schmidl and Alexander Canellopoulos at No. 1 and Tomasz Soltyka and Victor Casadevall at No. 3. After the point was clinched, Montana's No. 2 team fell 6-4.

Semion Branzburg and Peter Mimnagh-Fleming, the No. 2 team, didn't let the doubles loss get them down. Branzburg won 6-3, 6-3 at No. 1 singles and Mimnagh-Fleming was the first person off the court with a 6-1, 6-0 win at No. 2.

(3/11/2016) MTEN: vs UND 031116

"It was really good to see them not carry the doubles loss into the singles play, you have to just forget it and start anew," Nord said. "I was really happy with both of their singles play, in fact everyone's singles play was very good."

The singles matches were all swept by the Grizzlies, including an impressive win from freshman Alex Canellopoulos, 6-1, 6-1, at No. 3.

"Alex is a very talented freshman and I'm glad we have him," Nord said. "You can tell he's played a lot of tennis in his life because he is not too overwhelmed by the college tennis experience, which is just what we need."

The overall match was already decided when Soltyka and Casadevall took the court for their matches, but that didn't stop them from playing hard. They rolled through the opponents, finishing off the perfect 7-0 sweep.

Montana improves to .500 in the Big Sky on the year coming off a loss at Northern Arizona last weekend. Canellopoulos and Casadevall remained undefeated in Big Sky matches. Canellopoulos and Schmidl are also undefeated in conference doubles matches.

The Grizzlies have a day off before another home match, this time against defending conference champion Idaho.

"We've played a tough schedule and some of these guys needed a win to get their confidence going, and now we play the defending conference champions and they are very talented," Nord said. "We know we have to play well, but I hope we come out and free-wheel a little bit and not worry about being nervous or what's going on and just play to our potential."

Montana 7, North Dakota 0

Singles
1.) Semion Branzburg (UM) def. David Bergstrom (ND) 6-3, 6-3
2.) Peter Mimnagh-Fleming (UM) def. Ty Misialek (ND) 6-1, 6-0
3.) Alex Canellopoulos (UM) def. Travis Lau (ND) 6-1, 6-1
4.) Yannick Schmidl (UM) def. Connor Oberle (ND) 6-3, 6-3
5.) Tomasz Soltyka (UM) def. Joe Lee (ND) 6-2, 6-1
6.) Victor Casadevall (UM) def. Eshan Varma (ND) 6-1, 6-0

Doubles
1.) Schmidl/Canellopolous (UM) def. Bergstrom/Lau (ND) 6-1
2.) Oberle/Misialek (ND) def. Branzburg/Mimnagh-Fleming (UM) 6-4
3.) Casadevall/Soltyka (UM) def. Lee/Varma (ND) 6-0