Griz battle to 6-1 win over Bears

Friday, April 8

Missoula, Mont.

2:00 PM

Montana

Northern Colorado *

4/8/2016 7:01:00 PM | Men's Tennis

By: gogriz.com

Though they were made to work for it, the Montana men's tennis team picked up an important 6-1 victory over the visiting Northern Colorado Bears on a picture perfect Friday at the UM campus in Missoula.

The win bumps the Grizzlies up to No. 4 in the Big Sky standings at 6-6 overall on the season, and 5-2 in league play. Northern Colorado falls to 6-12 overall, and 3-5 in conference play.

The senior duo of Semion Branzburg and Tomasz Soltyka eased passed UNC's Cramer/Sheldon duo 6-2 at the No. 3 spot to get the Griz rolling in the doubles.

"We've played together in the last two matches and it's working well for us," said Branzburg of his doubles pairing with Soltyka. "Both of us are seniors, so we understand we don't have many matches to go, so we were really aggressive and we're trying to take the point right away, and not give any chances to our opponent."

On the other two doubles courts however, both the Yannick Schmidl/Alexander Canellopoulos duo and the Peter Mimnagh-Fleming/Victor Casadevall pair fell behind 0-3, only to see both teams come storming back into contention.

UM eventually lay claim to the doubles point when Casadevall and Mimnagh-Fleming battled their way to a 6-4 win on the No. 2 court, giving the Griz a boost of momentum that would carry them through the match.

(4/8/2016) MTEN: vs UNC 04082016

"We were running out of time in the doubles," said Montana head coach Kris Nord. "We were down at one and two, and we were running out of chances to break. I was getting concerned obviously, then Pete and Victor made a really good comeback from 15-40 to take the game, and that turned it around."

The momentum gained from a come-from-behind doubles win fueled the Griz in the singles as they took wins in the first five matches, dropping their only match of the afternoon in the No. 2 spot.

Branzburg again showed his senior leadership at No. 1 singles, breezing past UNC's Austin Mayo 6-1, 6-3 to give the Griz a solid start.

Soltyka sealed the win for Montana in the No. 6 spot, defeating Jacob Sheldon 6-1, 7-5.

Montana's mid-lineup aces continued their winning ways, as sophomores Victor Casadevall and Yannick Schmidl picked up singles wins at No. 5 and No. 3, respectively.

Casadevall's win over UNC's Connor Finerty is his ninth-straight, as the Spaniard remains undefeated in Big Sky play this season. Schmidl picked up his sixth-straight league win, putting him at 6-1 in Big Sky play.

On paper, it may appear the Griz handled UNC with relative ease, but with another important match against Eastern Washington tomorrow and the Big Sky tournament bearing down quickly, Coach Nord resented his team's slow start.

"That wasn't our best tennis across the board. It was a win today, but it was an ugly win," added Nord.

"Our motto is to get a little bit better each day. I felt like we stalled out, and we have to keep getting better if we want to get to conference and make a splash at conference."

The Griz will get another chance to improve on Saturday when the Big Sky No. 8 EWU Eagles visit the Garden City.

Eastern Washington fell to Montana State 2-5 in Bozeman on Friday, dropping their ninth-straight match and putting the Eagles at 8-16 (4-5 BSC) heading into Missoula.

The Griz/Eagles match gets underway at 2 p.m. at the Robert O. Lindsay Tennis Center on the UM camps. In the unlikely event of rain, the match will be moved indoors at the PEAK Racquet Club.

Singles competition
1. Branzburg, Semion (UM) def. Austin Mayo (UNC) 6-1, 6-3
2. Eric Schuermans (UNC) def. Mimnagh-Fleming, Peter (UM) 7-6 (8), 6-3
3. Schmidl, Yannick (UM) def. Cassell King (UNC) 6-1, 7-5
4. Canellopoulos, Alex (UM) def. Connor Finerty (UNC) 6-2, 4-6, 10-6
5. Casadevall, Victor (UM) def. Hayden Cramer (UNC) 6-3, 6-1
6. Soltyka, Tomasz (UM) def. Jacob Sheldon( (UNC) 6-1, 7-5

Doubles competition
1. Schmidl, Yannick/Canellopoulos, Alex (UM) - Austin Mayo/Cassell King (UNC) 6-5
2. Casadevall, Victor/Mimnagh-Fleming, P. (UM) def. Eric Schuermans/Connor Finerty (UNC) 6-4
3. Branzburg, Semion/Soltyka, Tomasz (UM) def. Hayden Cramer/Jacob Sheldon(UNC) 6-2

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