Griz fall to Cats in regular-season finale

Saturday, April 23

Bozeman, Mont.

4 PM

Montana

Montana State

4/23/2022 9:03:00 PM | Men's Tennis

Box Score PDF BOX SCORE

By: Montana Sports Information

The Montana men's tennis team capped its regular season in Bozeman on Saturday, dropping a tense Brawl of the Wild match to Montana State 2-5 at the Bobcat-Anderson Tennis Center.

The Griz fell behind early as the Bobcats rode the energy of a standing-room-only crowd to a win in the doubles round.

Despite wins from Ed Pudney and Moritz Stoeger in singles, UM couldn't recover from the deficit as MSU controlled the middle of the lineup with victories on courts two, three, four, and six.

Montana closes regular-season play at 14-4 overall and 5-3 in league play, with three of UM's four losses coming on the road against teams who all went undefeated at home. Meanwhile, Montana State finishes at 17-7 and 7-1 in conference play, with the Bobcats clinching a share of the Big Sky Championship with the Idaho Vandals – MSU's first league title since 2013.

The Griz and Cats may not be done with each other this season, however. With Saturday's result, Montana secured the No. 4 seed at the Big Sky tournament in Phoenix next week. Montana State earned a bye as the No. 2 seed with the possibility of a rematch in both the semifinal and final round.

"We had a great opportunity today to do some damage here in Bozeman, but they played really well on their home court. The nice thing is we can right this wrong in Phoenix and erase this loss, so that's what we'll look to do," said head coach Jason Brown.

"I'm really proud of the guys' effort today, though. I thought they all battled as hard as they could and conducted themselves with a lot of class. I'm proud to wear maroon in Bozeman, but it didn't go our way today."

With Brown shuffling the doubles lineup, Montana started the match in a hole after Gustav Theilgaard and Milo Benn fell to Daan van Dijk and Nejc Sitar 6-2 on court two. Playing doubles together for the first time this season, Oisin Shaffrey and Lawrence Sciglitano then fell to Bradley Buckland and Marcos Zelver 6-4 on court three to clinch the round for MSU.

Meanwhile, Pudney and Stoeger were tied with the Bobcats' No. 70-ranked Nathan/Panik pair 4-4 on court one when the point was clinched, giving the Griz a tight finish for the opening point.

In singles, Pudney returned to his winning ways and improved to 12-3 this season with a convincing win over Van Dijk on court one. The UM senior battled through a tiebreaker in the first set before blanking the Bobcat in the second to win 7-6(5), 6-0.

Montana State regained the lead shortly after with Sciglitano falling in straight sets to Panik on court two, 6-3, 6-1 to make it a 2-1 team score.

On court four, a comeback attempt from Theilgaard fell short, with the UM freshman falling to Buckland 4-6, 6-4, 2-6 to extend MSU's team lead 3-1.

Meanwhile, Stoeger was building a lead over Sitar on court five, putting Momentum on Montana's side, with Shaffrey going to a third set on court three. The Grizzly senior was unable to close out the win, however, falling in an extra frame in both the second and third set to fall to Jamieson Nathan 6-4, 5-7, 5-7, and clinching the win for MSU.

Stoeger would go on to win his match on court five and remain undefeated in Big Sky play in his sophomore season at 7-0, beating Star in a third-set tiebreaker 6-2, 4-6, 1-0(7).

Pontus Hallgren closed out the match on court six with a 4-6, 3-6 loss to Joaquin Espinoza to make the final score 5-2 in the Bobcats' favor.

UP NEXT: No. 4 Montana will face No. 5 Idaho State in the first round of the Big Sky Championship tourney on Thursday, April 28, at 8:00 a.m. at the Phoenix Tennis Center. No. 3 Northern Arizona and No. 6 Sacramento State square off in the other quarterfinal, with the highest remaining seed facing No. 2 Montana State and the lowest remaining seed facing No. 1 Idaho in the semifinal round.

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