Friday, October 4
Pocatello, Idaho
All Day
Montana
at
Idaho State Invitational
Griz win doubles title at ISU Invitational
10/7/2019 5:52:00 PM | Men's Tennis
Senior Ludvig Hallgren and sophomore Ed Pudney rattled off four-straight wins over pairings from Boise State, Air Force, and two from the host Bengals to claim the doubles title at the Idaho State Tennis Invitational for Montana over the weekend.
The doubles win highlighted UM's second fall tournament of the season, with the Griz struggling to find the same form in the singles round. Montana also cleaned up in the consolation sides of the bracket, with each UM pair picking up a final-round win.
"Our doubles felt like a real high note. That was a bit of a thorn in our side last year, so we've been stressing it in practice, and I think they did a great job," said head coach Jason Brown.
"Singles was a struggle. We lost a lot of close matches. I felt a little dissatisfied with it, and I think the guys did too. I think we've raised the standard of expectation for this team and dominate Big Sky opponents, and that didn't quite happen, but I think we know what we need to do going forward."
In a condensed, one-day doubles format, Hallgren and Pudney caught fire early with a tiebreaker 7-6 win over Boise's DeMulling/Karagozoglu pair, then continued with a 6-2 sweep of Air Force's Azuma/Kitayamna pair to reach the semis.
There, they were able to battle their way past ISU's Thrac/Rendek pair in a tiebreaker (7-6(7)) and dispatched the home-team pair of Lohse/Ridemar in another tiebreaker (7-6(6)) to claim the title.
Despite having not played much doubles with Pudney, Hallgren said the pair was able to keep a level head en-route to the championship, and that the win could pay dividends later in the conference season.
"We trusted that we were good enough and we didn't have to do anything out of the ordinary to win every match, so we just trusted our game and even if we were down we remained calm and knew we'd get a breakthrough," said Hallgren
"It's obviously very fun to win a title in a tournament where there are a lot of Big Sky opponents to go and make a statement."
In singles, sophomore Milo Benn showed his improvement over the summer with a pair of wins in the Bengal C flight, defeating Montana State's Chase Stoner (7-5, 6-1) and Idaho State's Filippo LaCava 6-0, 6-2.
Montana now turns its attention to the ITA Mountain Regionals set for Oct. 16-20 in Denver.
The doubles win highlighted UM's second fall tournament of the season, with the Griz struggling to find the same form in the singles round. Montana also cleaned up in the consolation sides of the bracket, with each UM pair picking up a final-round win.
"Our doubles felt like a real high note. That was a bit of a thorn in our side last year, so we've been stressing it in practice, and I think they did a great job," said head coach Jason Brown.
"Singles was a struggle. We lost a lot of close matches. I felt a little dissatisfied with it, and I think the guys did too. I think we've raised the standard of expectation for this team and dominate Big Sky opponents, and that didn't quite happen, but I think we know what we need to do going forward."
In a condensed, one-day doubles format, Hallgren and Pudney caught fire early with a tiebreaker 7-6 win over Boise's DeMulling/Karagozoglu pair, then continued with a 6-2 sweep of Air Force's Azuma/Kitayamna pair to reach the semis.
There, they were able to battle their way past ISU's Thrac/Rendek pair in a tiebreaker (7-6(7)) and dispatched the home-team pair of Lohse/Ridemar in another tiebreaker (7-6(6)) to claim the title.
Despite having not played much doubles with Pudney, Hallgren said the pair was able to keep a level head en-route to the championship, and that the win could pay dividends later in the conference season.
"We trusted that we were good enough and we didn't have to do anything out of the ordinary to win every match, so we just trusted our game and even if we were down we remained calm and knew we'd get a breakthrough," said Hallgren
"It's obviously very fun to win a title in a tournament where there are a lot of Big Sky opponents to go and make a statement."
In singles, sophomore Milo Benn showed his improvement over the summer with a pair of wins in the Bengal C flight, defeating Montana State's Chase Stoner (7-5, 6-1) and Idaho State's Filippo LaCava 6-0, 6-2.
Montana now turns its attention to the ITA Mountain Regionals set for Oct. 16-20 in Denver.
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