Griz head west for weekend slate

Following a rare home loss to open the season, the Montana men's tennis squad takes to the road this week for three nonconference duals in the greater Spokane area.

UM starts the weekend Saturday, Jan. 21, with a doubleheader against the D-III Whitworth Pirates, a day designed by head coach Jason Brown to provide early season reps up and down the roster.

The Griz then cap the weekend with a nonconference dual in Cheney, taking on Eastern Washington Sunday, Jan. 22, at 1 p.m. Mountain Time, giving them an early glimpse of the conference season ahead.

Saturday's doubleheader (set for 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Mountain) will be the season opener for the Pirates. Links to live scoring and a live stream of the action are available at GoGriz.com/MTEN.

EWU enters Sunday's dual at 0-1 on the season after falling 7-0 at Gonzaga on Wednesday. No live coverage of that match will be available.

Montana (0-1) looks to get back to its winning ways after dropping a 4-3 nail-biter to North Dakota last week – just the fourth overall loss and the first nonconference loss for the Griz in Missoula since Brown took over the program in 2018.

With one of the youngest squads in the nation and the only team in the Big Sky without a senior on the roster, five of UM's ten-man squad is set to play either his first or second college dual match this weekend.

"I'm looking forward to getting some more experience for this really young squad," said junior Moritz Stoeger, the team's elder statesman.

"We can't wait to compete. We didn't get the best result last weekend, but I think we still have a squad full of talent and fight. You get better with reps, and I'm looking forward to getting tons of reps this weekend."

Montana will have its full roster available this week, too, with reining Big Sky Player of the Week Guillermo Martin back in action after making an impressive return from injury over the past 20 months.

Tom Bittner will also return to the fold for UM Saturday after missing week one with sickness. Bittner impressed in the fall tournament season with a team-high UTR of 12.32, but the freshman from Germany has yet to play his first college dual.

Also getting his first match this week is freshman Jake Watkins of Whitefish, who will take the court with his older brother, redshirt junior Josh Watkins, in Spokane.

These debuts come just one week after three other Grizzly underclassmen, Fernando Perez, George Russell, and Baltazar Wiger-Nordas, each played their first dual as Grizzlies.

"We're going to have a lot of fresh faces out there again, but after last week hopefully, we have fewer nerves and a better understanding of college tennis," said Brown.

"I'm excited to see everyone on the team in action. We're going have the entire team play both singles and doubles, so I'll get a better sense of where we're at and what we need to work on."

UP NEXT: Montana returns to the road next week, heading to the Front Range for a pair of nonconference matches at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

The Grizzlies pulled off one of the biggest upsets in program history last year, beating the Falcons 4-3 in Missoula. UM will get another shot at an upset, taking on Air Force on Jan. 27 before capping the weekend with a neutral site dual against Abilene Christian at the Academy on Jan. 28.

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Players Mentioned

Tom Bittner

Guillermo Martin

Fernando Perez

George Russell

Moritz Stoeger

Jake Watkins

Josh Watkins

Baltazar Wiger-Nordas

University of Montana Athletics