Griz cap fall season at Gonzaga

The Montana men's tennis team will cap a fall tournament season this week in Spokane at the Gonzaga Invitational, competing in a seven-team field from the West Coast, WAC, and Big Sky Conferences.

Action from Gonzaga's Stevens Tennis Center gets underway at 8 a.m. on Friday, Nov. 8, and concludes Sunday afternoon with the field broken into three separate singles and doubles draws. Gonzaga will provide live scoring from the event, with links available at GoGriz.com.

Coming off a clean sweep of the home-court Peak Fall Championship last week, the Griz return to face collegiate competition at GU, with participating teams including the University of Portland, Seattle University, Idaho, Montana State, and Northern Colorado.

With an eye toward solidifying a lineup when the Griz return to the court in January for the dual season, head coach Jason Brown will use the Gonzaga Invitational as a measuring stick for his squad as they head into the winter.

"Gonzaga has always put on a great fall tournament, and our guys will get a good number of reps," said Brown.

"Traditionally when we've done well in this tournament we've done really well in the season. It will be good to get one last gage of where our team sits before the offseason."

Set to compete for the Griz are Oisin Shaffrey and Max Korkh in the Blue singles bracket, Cameron Isbell and Milo Benn in the Red singles bracket, and Josh Watkins and Pontus Hallgren in the White singles.

With another eye toward finding the right doubles combos this spring, Brown will also enter the tournament with three new pairings, with Shaffrey and Benn combining to earn the No. 1 seed in the Red doubles bracket. Max Korkh, a senior, and Cameron Isbell, a freshman, will pair in the Blue doubles bracket, while Hallgren and Watkins will pair in the White bracket.

As any coach would, Brown expects to see the best tennis yet from his squad as the fall season wraps up.

"This weekend will probably have direct implications on who is going to start out in the lineup in the spring," says Brown.

"We'll take the fall as a whole, but just like college football or anything else, the final weeks mean more than the first ones."

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Players Mentioned

Milo Benn

Pontus Hallgren

Cameron Isbell

Max Korkh

Oisin Shaffrey

Josh Watkins

University of Montana Athletics