Griz hitting stride into home opener Saturday

The Montana men's tennis team will play its first matches of the year in the friendly confines of the Peak Racquet Club in Missoula this weekend with a doubleheader against the Whitworth Pirates.

The Griz (4-3) will play a pair of matches against the Pirates (0-2) on Saturday, Feb. 22, with the matinee starting at 10:30 a.m. and the second match starting at 3 p.m. Both matches at the Peak are free and open to the public. Live scoring can be found at GrizStats.com.

Saturday's nonconference matchup will be the final tune-up before UM dives head-first into its Big Sky Conference schedule in early March, and the Griz are entering it with a full head of speed.

Montana enters the weekend riding a three-match win streak with an upset over Nevada under its' belt and two near-misses against Gonzaga and Boise State to put it at 4-3 on the season.

A big reason for that early success has been the strength of the Grizzlies' middle lineup, which has matured from a group of wet-behind-the-ears freshmen to steady sophomores. While Montana is still an overall young team with two seniors to lead eight underclassmen, the four sophomores in the regular lineup are a combined 17-8 in singles and 7-2 in doubles.

After earning the first Big Sky Player of the Week honor of his career two weeks ago, and entering this weekend after another week where he could have repeated after going undefeated at 6-0, Oisin Shaffrey has emerged as one of the league's best in his second year at UM.

With a Big Sky-best 5-2 record on court four, Shaffrey has been a leader for a group of Griz youngsters that are starting to hit their stride and earn crucial wins down the lineup for UM.

"Now that we're sophomores instead of freshmen, it's completely different. You kind of know the whole scene, you know what it's all about," said Shaffrey. "We all feel really good, really strong, and we can' wait to get going.

"For me personally, it's just kind of clicked a little bit," he added. "A couple of deuce games here and there and you're all of a sudden winning. Then the luck kept coming, so it's been good the last couple of weeks."

After not starting the season in the singles lineup, sophomore Pontus Hallgren has also come on strong at 4-0 on courts five and six, and Ed Pudney has also been a star for the Griz at 4-3, with one of those losses coming in his first match on court one.

Another of the highlights for Montana in the nonconference schedule has been the crucial doubles point, with the Griz entering the weekend having won six-straight. And there again the sophomores have been starring.

As a pair, Pudney and Shaffrey have run out to a 3-1 record on court one, while seniors Ludvig Hallgren and Max Korkh have also posted a 3-1 record together.

But for as well as the team has been playing, they won't be sleeping on the D-III Pirates, knowing that in Tennis anything can happen if the shots start falling.

"It's the first home game of the season, and you want to start off well against a good team. We have to give them respect. They still have some very good players that, on their day, can challenge us, and if a break goes their way, who knows. So, we need to be focused," said Shaffrey.

After Saturday's doubleheader, the Griz will set their sights on a trio of Big Sky matches at home, starting with Northern Colorado and Portland State on March 7 and 8, followed by the annual Brawl of the Wild match against Montana State on March 15.

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Players Mentioned

Ludvig Hallgren

Pontus Hallgren

Max Korkh

Ed Pudney

Oisin Shaffrey

University of Montana Athletics