Griz ease past Thunderbirds to open road trip

Thursday, March 24

Cedar City, Utah

Noon

Montana

Southern Utah *

3/24/2016 6:05:00 PM | Men's Tennis

By: gogriz.com

The Montana men's tennis squad put the distraction of an arduous travel day behind them to sweep the Southern Utah Thunderbirds 7-0 in Cedar City on Thursday afternoon.

The Griz now sit at .500 in Big Sky play at 2-2 (3-4 overall) heading into the team's final nonconference matches of the season in Las Vegas on Friday and Saturday against two of the Mountain West's top teams, New Mexico and UNLV.

Cedar City is one of the more notoriously difficult road trips in the Big Sky, and Wednesday's travel day was no exception for the Griz, arriving at the team hotel just in time for lights out, and not allowing the team to get a hit in before the match started Thursday. No matter though, as the Griz cruised passed the T-birds only dropping one set on the day.

"The guys didn't worry about it and went out and played well, said Montana head coach Kris Nord.

"I think our confidence is going in the right direction, but tomorrow is going to be much more of a test to see where we are."

The Grizzlies accomplished one of their main goals of the day, clinching the doubles point in three straight wins.

The Yannick Schmidl/Alexander Canellopoulos pair started off with the 6-4 win at No. 1, followed by Semion Branzburg and Peter Mimnagh-Fleming at No. 2 picking up a 6-4 win to seal the point, and the Victor Casadevall/Petar Barcot pair picking up the sweep, winning 6-1.

The Griz swept the singles matches as well, winning all but one match in straight-sets, highlighted by Victor Casadevall not dropping a point in his 6-0, 6-0 defeat of SUU's Branden Olcott.

"Singles play was solid," added Nord. "Probably the guy that's standing out right now for me is Casadevall, he's playing real steady tennis for us."

The Grizzlies now travel down I-15 to Las Vegas where they will face New Mexico and UNLV at UNLV. Montana faces UNM on Friday night starting at 5 p.m. MT, and will get underway against the Rebels early Saturday at 11 a.m. MT.

RESULTS
Montana 7, Southern Utah 0

Doubles Competition
1. Schmidl/Canellopoulos (UM) def. Andrus/Nelson (SUU), 6-4
2. Branzburg/Mimnagh-Fleming (UM) def. Yeacker/Olcott (SUU), 6-4
3. Casadevall/Barcot (UM) def. Coen/Garnett (SUU), 6-1

Singles Competition
1. Peter Mimnagh-Fleming (UM) def. Dario Rios (SUU) 6-1, 6-2
2. Semion Branzburg (UM) def. Jacob Nelson (SUU) 6-2, 6-0
3. Yannick Schmidl (UM) def. Ryan Andrus (SUU) 6-2, 7-5
4. Alexander Canellopoulos (UM) def. Joshua Coen (SUU) 6-1, 6-1
5. Victor Casadevall (UM) def. Branden Olcott (SUU) 6-0, 6-0
6. Tomasz Soltyka (UM) def. Yeacker (SUU) 6-1, 4-6, 10-3