Griz fall to Sac State in first league match

Saturday, February 25

Sacramento, Calif.

2 PM (MT)

Montana

Sacramento State

2/25/2023 10:46:00 PM | Men's Tennis

Box Score

By: Montana Sports Information

The Montana men's tennis team dropped its opening Big Sky Conference match of the season in soggy Sacramento, falling to Sac State 5-2 in a stop-start affair that was paused by a rain delay.

Despite being unable to practice before the match and not playing the tune-up against UC Davis due to weather, the Griz, picked fourth in the league's preseason poll, gave the preseason No. 2 Hornets all they could handle on their home courts.

Sophomores Fernando Perez and Guillermo Martin earned straight-sets wins on courts three and six for UM, while Moritz Stoeger won the first of his three sets, and Montana lost four more sets by a narrow 7-5 margin.

The Griz now fall to 4-5 on the year and 0-1 in conference play, while the Hornets improve to 8-3 and 2-0 on the league table, having won seven of their last eight duals.

"Losing conference matches is brutal, but all-in-all, I'm incredibly proud of our young team and the fight they brought against this talented Sac State team," said head coach Jason Brown.

"Zero excuses. The best team won today but considering this is our first match outside since early October, and we were basically stuck in our hotel room for the last two days due to rain, it was probably as good a performance as we could hope for.

Montana was in a position to pull out a win in the doubles round, with Tom Bittner and Fernando Perez beating Sac's Silva/Chodur pair 6-4 on court two. In the rubber match on court one, Gustav Theilgaard and George Russell narrowly missed out on an upset, falling to the Keki/Voros pair on court one. Keki and Voros proved to be one of the top doubles teams in the conference, now sitting at 6-2 as pair this season.

"Great efforts by our top two doubles teams getting a win at two and coming up just short to Keki and Voros on one, who are clearly the best doubles pair in the conference, in my opinion," added Brown.

Trailing 1-0 heading into singles, Perez picked up a quick win for the Griz on court three, beating Adam Chodur 7-5, 6-2 to tie the match 1-1 before rain paused the action.

Once the courts dried, Theilgaard nearly picked up an upset, taking Mark Keki, the defending Big Sky Player of the Week, as far as he could without forcing a tiebreaker, falling 7-5, 7-5 to put the Hornets up 3-1 after a Bittner loss on two.

Martin picked up Montana's final win of the afternoon on court six, beating Rudolfs Aksenoks 6-4, 6-2 to cap the scoring for the Griz.

'The straight-set wins by our two Spaniards (Perez and Martin) at three and six gave us a chance, but the rest of Sac St.'s veteran team just simply played too well on the important points late in sets for us to overcome," said Brown.

UP NEXT: Due to rain returning to the Sacramento area overnight and into Sunday afternoon, Montana's postponed match against UC Davis will not be played and has officially been canceled.

The Griz now prepare to continue conference play on their home courts at the Peak Racquet Club, with Eastern Washington coming to Missoula on Sunday, March 5, at noon.

"We will use this loss to fuel our growth and comeback stronger throughout the rest of this season, starting next weekend at home against Eastern," Brown said.