No. 71 Griz host Bengals and Lumberjacks in Big Sky duals

#71 Montana vs Idaho State
Saturday, April 2, 9:30 a.m.
Peak Racquet Club – Missoula, Mont.
Live Scoring

#71 Montana vs Northern Arizona
Sunday, April 3, 10:30 a.m.
Peak Racquet Club – Missoula, Mont.
Live Scoring

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MISSOULA, Mont. – The two contenders for last year's Big Sky Conference championship visit Missoula this week as the Montana men's tennis team continues its four-match homestand in the heart of the league schedule.

Coming off a dramatic, come-from-behind, 4-3 win over Weber State, the No. 71 Grizzlies (11-1, 3-0 BSC) look to remain undefeated in conference play as they host Idaho State (10-8, 3-1 BSC) Saturday and Northern Arizona (14-7, 2-1 BSC) Sunday at the Peak Racquet Club.

Even with a pair of upsets over Mountain West programs on its record this year, Montana might be in for its most challenging weekend of the season as well.

Idaho State, which beat the Griz for the first time since 2006 a year ago in Pocatello, beat Weber 6-1 and pulled out a huge doubles upset over No. 2 Baylor back in February.

Northern Arizona (ranked as high as 65 in early March) comes to Missoula as the two-time defending Big Sky champions, having won the conference title in 2019 and repeating in 2021 after the 2020 tourney was canceled.

But Montana is on a roll, and the Peak has been extra friendly to the Griz as well, entering the weekend at 26-2 at home since 2018.

Even with UM extending its best-ever start to a season last week, what they're really looking for is the best finish to a season in program history. To get there, they'll have to run the gauntlet this weekend.

"On paper, the two top teams from last year are coming in this weekend, so it will be a good test for us again," said head coach Jason Brown.

"The parity in the league is incredible this year. It's like nothing I've ever seen. So, we're excited to compete. It's definitely a weekend where we get to see what we're made of, and so far, we've been made of all the right stuff."

The Griz and Bengals get underway first this week, with serves going up on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. at the Peak. It's the first match of a UM doubleheader that day, with the Grizzly women facing NAU at 2 p.m.

Montana faces Northern Arizona in a Sunday matinee that gets underway at 10:30 a.m.

Both matches are free to attend and open to the public. Links to live scoring are available at GoGriz.com for those unable to attend.

//GRIZ TRACKS//

• Grizzly freshman Gustav Theilgaard won his second Big Sky Player of the Week award of the year on Tuesday after yet another undefeated weekend in UM's win over Weber State. The Dane has yet to lose a set of tennis all season long at 9-0 in singles and 9-1 in doubles. He and his doubles partner Milo Benn are 7-1 together so far this season as well.

• Head Coach Jason Brown earned his 50^th career victory at Montana in the Grizzlies' win over WSU. The fifth-year coach and the 2018 Big Sky Coach of the Year, enters this weekend with a 50-34 overall record at UM, a 22-8 record in Big Sky play, and a 26-2 record in Missoula.

• At 3-0 in league play, Montana sits second in the Big Sky table this week behind Montana State who has an extra conference win over Idaho State, a 4-3 win for the Bobcats in Pocatello. The two treasure state programs are a combined 25-8 this season, and will face each other in the final match of the regular season in Bozeman on April 23.

• Led by Theilgaard, Moritz Stoeger, Lawrence Sciglitano, and senior Oisin Shaffrey, the middle of Montana's lineup came through in the clutch against Weber State, and has been an asset all season. UM is 11-1 on court three, and 9-1 on court four this year.

• Senior Ed Pudney battled through injury against Weber, leaving everything on the court in a three-set loss on court one. Pudney has been Montana's ace in the top position at 9-2 in both singles and doubles. Including fall tournaments, he's putting together one of the best seasons for a Grizzly ever at 19-3

• Montana was picked third in this year's Big Sky preseason coaches' poll. NAU, the two-time defending league champs were picked to repeat at No. 1, and ISU was picked to slot in behind UM at No. 4. Montana's next opponent, Sacramento State, was picked second.

//Scouting the Bengals//

• Idaho State is led by second-year coach Alexander Free who led the Bengals to the Big Sky tournament title match in 2021.

• In 2021, ISU went 2-1 in league play last season with wins over Montana (5-2) and Weber State (4-3) in the league's north division to earn a trip to the tournament. In Phoenix, ISU beat Idaho 4-0 in the semifinal to earn a trip to the title match where they fell to NAU 4-0.

• The Bengals picked up one of the upsets of the year in college tennis in doubles, beating the court one team from No. 2 Baylor in Waco in February in a 1-6 team loss. ISU's Patrik Trhac and Aleksandar Petrovic earned a 7-6 (4) win over the No. 18 ranked team in the country, Finn Bass and Sven Lah. ISU's Ege Cankus and Hiroki Fujita then clinched the doubles point with a 7-6 (2) win over Jacob Brumm and Marko Miladinovic of Baylor. Cankus and Fujita were down 5-1 before rallying to earn the win.

• Idaho State also owns wins over Grand Canyon, Incarnate Word, Nevada, and Sac State, with a narrow 3-4 loss at Boise State, whom the Griz beat 4-3.

"They have a really energetic coach who's got those guys fired up to play every match," said Brown.

"They've played a tough schedule, and with so much parity in the conference they're one of the top teams. I'm really happy we get to play them at home."

//Scouting the Lumberjacks//

• Northern Arizona has been the class of the conference in recent seasons, advancing to the NCAA tourney as the league's auto-bid in 2019 and 2021. Last season they didn't lose a match at the Big Sky tourney, beating Portland State and Idaho State 4-0 each before falling to No. 4 Texas 0-4 in the NCAA tourney. In 2019 they also blanked PSU and ISU before falling to the USC Trojans in the first round.

• NAU last beat the Griz in 2019, when the 'Jacks won 7-0 in Missoula – one of only two losses at home in Brown's career as head coach.

• The Lumberjacks come to Missoula after a rare home loss of their own, falling last week to the Idaho Vandals 3-4 in Flagstaff where they won the doubles point but dropped singles matches on courts one, three, four, and five in the loss. It was the second-straight loss for NAU, which lost to the No. 40 Washington Huskies 1-6 in Las Vegas three days prior.

• The 'Jacks come to Missoula on Sunday, a day after opening their two-match road trip to the Treasure State against Montana State in Bozeman on Saturday.

• NAU also owns an upset over Air Force this season, beating the Falcons 5-2 at the U.S.A.F.A. in Colorado Springs in February.

• Junior Alex Groves leads NAU in wins this season at 15-4 and 3-0 in singles play, with most of his wins coming on courts four and five. Senior, and former Big Sky Freshman of the Year Tumosa Facundo has held down the No. 1 position for most of the season at 5-6. Former first-team All-Big Sky pick Eban Staker-Meads is also 3-5 on court one.

• The 'Jacks are led by fourth-year head coach Maciej Bogusz who was named Big Sky Coach of the Year in 2019.

"NAU is an extremely well-coached, veteran team who has seen a lot of success. They're coming off a pretty shocking upset loss to Idaho at home, where they are pretty dominant. So, this will be another great test to see where we're at as a program," added Brown.

No. 71 Griz host Bengals and Lumberjacks in Big Sky duals

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Players Mentioned

Milo Benn

Ed Pudney

Lawrence Sciglitano

Oisin Shaffrey

Moritz Stoeger

Gustav Theilgaard

University of Montana Athletics