Griz fall to Utes in Salt Lake City

Saturday, March 6

Salt Lake City, Utah

3 PM

Montana

Utah

3/6/2021 6:18:00 PM | Men's Tennis

Box Score

By: Montana Sports Information

The Montana men's tennis team wrapped up its two-match trip to the Wasatch Front on Saturday with a competitive 5-0 loss to the Utah Utes, who had received votes in the ITA Top-50 national ranking earlier in the week.

In a match played to clinch, the Grizzlies (3-6) left a lead on doubles court two and had split-set matches going in singles on courts five and six when Utah (10-4) clinched the overall victory, leaving potential wins for UM unfinished.

The Griz now return to Missoula after going winless in the Beehive State following a loss to a strong BYU side on Friday afternoon in Provo.

"This was a much better performance across the board today. We struggled against BYU, but today I felt like we competed well, and the energy was great," said head coach Jason Brown.

"We had a couple chances to flip the script on Utah, but we just have to get better in the big points. If we do that, we're in a much better spot. This was a great learning experience, though, and we'll take a lot of positives from it."

Playing together in doubles for just the second time this season, Milo Benn and Ed Pudney built a 3-2 lead in their set over Utah's Flores/Krenn pair on court two.

The Grizzly pair held a 4-3 lead with a 30-love edge in the last game when the doubles round was clinched for the Utes, with Chase Bartlett and Oisin Shaffrey falling 6-0 on court one and Moritz Stoeger and Guillermo Martin falling 6-1 on three.

In singles, Montana's bottom order lineup put the Griz in a position to pick up at least two wins, but the Utes earned straight-set victories on courts 1-4 to seal the home win, their second of the day after beating rival Utah State 4-0 earlier that morning at the Eccles Tennis Center.

The Grizzlies' came out firing up and down the lineup to start the match, with Shaffrey building an early 4-2 lead in the first set over Utah's Geronimo Busleiman on court two and Bartlett taking a 2-1 lead over Francisco Bastias early on court three. However, the leads wouldn't last with Shaffrey running out of gas and falling 7-5, 6-1, and Bartlett falling 6-4, 6-0.

Pontus Hallgren was the only Grizzly to win the opening set, dominating Utah's Chris Heck 6-1 on court five and leading 5-4 in the second when the match was called, missing four match points to leave the contest unfinished.

On court six, Martin rebounded from a 3-6 loss in the first set to win the second 6-4 when Utah clinched the match.

Montana now prepares to open Big Sky play in two weeks with a road trip to Oregon, where UM will face the University of Portland on March 20, followed by the first conference match of the year at Portland State on March 21.