Griz hang tough with Lobos in loss

Friday, March 25

Las Vegas, Nev.

5:00 PM (MT)

Montana

New Mexico

3/25/2016 9:21:00 PM | Men's Tennis

By: gogriz.com

The Montana men's tennis team put a strong showing on the court before falling to one of the best teams in the Mountain West Conference, the New Mexico Lobos, 6-1 in a Friday night match that was much closer than the score line would indicate.

The Griz and Lobos met on the campus of UNLV in Las Vegas, where the Griz will play again tomorrow morning to complete a three-match road trip through Utah and Nevada.

With the nonconference loss, Montana moves to 3-5 on the season, but remains at 2-2 in Big Sky play with the bulk of the conference season ahead of them, and four home matches left on the schedule.

"It was a 6-1 match and it felt like a 4-3 match, and a match we could have won, so I was happy with the guys," said Montana head coach Kris Nord.

"I liked how we fought. We're going the right direction. We'd like to have a few more wins, but that's a tough team and we were close."

The Griz started out strong in the doubles competition, picking up a win in the No. 1 spot to open the match, and forcing a tiebreaker at No. 2 to determine who would clinch the point.

The Yannick Schmidl and Alexander Canellopoulos pair took the 6-2 victory to open the doubles, followed by Tomasz Soltyka and Petar Barcot falling 6-3 in the No. 3 spot, leaving the No. 2 match as the decider.

Montana's upperclassmen leaders Semion Branzburg and Peter Mimnagh-Fleming then pushed the Van Leijsen/Tran team to the brink, as the Griz had the opportunity to serve for the match winner twice, but eventually fell 7-5.

"I thought the guys played great. We were a point or two away from wining the dubs point, so I was happy with that," added Coach Nord.

In singles, the Grizzlies pushed three matches into three sets, again testing the Lobos but coming up short of the upset.

Victor Casadevall continued his fine form for UM, picking up Montana's only victory of the day in three sets at the No. 5 spot, claiming a 4-6, 7-5, 10-8 come-from-behind win over UNM's Rodolfo Jauregui.

Freshman Alex Canellopoulos also continues to turn heads for a youngster, pushing his match to a third set as well, before falling 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the No. 4 spot. Also forcing a third set was Yannick Schmidl, who fell at the No. 3 spot 5-7, 6-3, 10-4.

Montana now turns around to face the home team UNLV in a tough match to finish the week. The Rebels defeated the Lobos earlier in the day on Friday to give coach Nord an indication of what the Griz will have to do to claim an upset victory.

"I'm happy wit the direction we're going. We just need to clean up a few things and we're going to be where we need to be. UNLV will be more of a test, and that's fine because we need tennis like this to get us ready for the next month."

The first serve of the Montana/UNLV match goes up at 11 a.m. MT, Noon local time.

RESULTS
New Mexico 6, Montana 1

Doubles Competition
1. Schmidl/Canellopoulos (UM) def. Ge/Jauregui (UNM) 6-2
2. Van Leijsen/Tran (UNM) def. Branzburg/Mimnagh-Fleming (UM) 7-6 (5)
3. Escutia/Hernandez-Tong (UNM) def. Soltyka/Barcot (UM) 6-3

Singles Competition
1. Bart Van Leijsen (UNM) def. Semion Branzburg (UM) 7-5, 6-4
2. Jorge Escutia (UNM) def. Peter Mimnagh-Fleming (UM) 6-2, 6-4
3. Ricky Hernandez-Tong (UNM) def. Yannick Schmidl (UM) 5-7, 6-3, 10-4
4. Augustus Ge (UNM) def. Alexander Canellopoulos (UM) 2-6, 6-3, 6-3
5. Victor Casadevall (UM) def. Rodolfo Jauregui (UNM) 4-6, 7-5, 10-8
6. Michael Tran (UNM) def. Tomasz Soltyka (UM) 6-4, 6-2