Griz return home, face Eagles Sunday in conference dual

With a couple inches of fresh snow on the ground in Missoula, it's the perfect time for some tennis.

The Montana men's tennis team returns home for the first time in nearly two months on Sunday, hosting Eastern Washington in a Big Sky Conference dual in the cozy confines of the Peak Racquet Club.

Opening serves in the Sunday matinee go up at high noon at the Peak, located south of Missoula on Blue Mountain Road. Admission to the racquet club is free and open to the public. Links to live scoring of the match can be found at GoGriz.com/MTEN.

Montana (4-5, 0-1 BSC) looks to pick up its first league win of the season against an Eagles squad (3-5, 0-1) they have already beaten once this year in nonconference play in Cheney back in late January.

Since then, however, the Grizzlies have gone through plenty of ups, downs, and detours along the way as the young team looks to find its footing.

After two narrow losses on the road at Air Force, the Griz had a trip to Vegas canceled due to flight issues, missing out on a valuable opportunity to sharpen up for conference play against UNLV and UC San Diego. A week later, UM hit the road to Washington and split matches against Whitman and Gonzaga.

Then, another cancelation as Montana traveled to California and was rained out at UC Davis before dropping the first Big Sky match of the season to Sacramento State in a stop-start, rain-delayed dual.

Now 43 days since the last meeting against EWU, the Griz return to the Peak. No travel issues to worry about, no rain delays, just the chance to build conference wins as the heart of the league schedule nears.

Montana will be looking for some home-court redemption this weekend as well.

The Griz opened the season in Missoula on January 14, suffering an exceptionally rare home loss to North Dakota.

How rare? Consider this: In head coach Jason Brown's tenure, the Griz are an astounding 28-4 at home over six years, equating to a .875 win percentage.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a better home-court advantage in all of college athletics, and UM is hoping to take advantage this weekend.

"Considering the travel woes of the early season due to weather or airlines, it's nice to know for sure you're going to get a match at the friendly indoor confines of the Peak. I'm happy to be home, and the guys are too, especially considering we lost a heartbreaker here in the opener," said Brown.

"The goal is to try to make that the only loss of the season here at the Peak, and hopefully the only home loss for some of these guys in their career."

That's how good Montana has been at home under Brown. Players can count the number of losses at the Peak on one hand.

GRIZ TRACKS: Despite taking a loss at Sac State last week, the Griz enter Sunday's dual with plenty of positives from the match. The freshman/sophomore duo of Tom Bittner and Fernando Perez got a win in doubles. They enter this week's match against EWU with the best win percentage as a pair on the team at 3-1 this spring.

• Perez has quietly built the best singles record on the team as well after taking a straight-set win at Sac. The Spaniard has held down the middle of the lineup, sitting at 5-3 on the year, 2-1 on court three, 2-1 on court four, and 1-1 on five.

• Guillermo Martin also took a straight-set win in California and has built one of the team's best records at 4-1 overall and 3-0 on court six.

• Two Grizzlies have earned Big Sky Player of the Week honors this season. Martin and Sam Baldwin, both sophomores, earned the award in the first two weeks of the year. Martin won after beating his opponent from North Dakota in straight sets on week one.

Baldwin had a huge week against Whitworth and Eastern Washington, going 4-0 on the trip and landing on ESPN's SportsCenter Top-10 with a jaw-dropping between-the-legs winner.

SCOUTING THE EAGLES: On paper, EWU comes to Missoula with a similar look as the Griz, sitting at 3-5, winning the matches they should against lower-division teams but falling to all four D-I teams they've played.

Montana cleaned up in the first meeting between the two in January, with the Griz taking each win in straight sets leading to the 7-0 sweep of the Eagles.

That's been the story for EWU, having lost to Montana, Gonzaga, Utah State, and Utah 7-0 each and falling to Idaho 6-1 in their only conference match to date. Their only wins have come over Whitman, LC State, and Whitworth.

Despite the lopsided losses, Brown says when it comes to conference action, the Eagles are a different bird of prey.

"I think this is a good opportunity for us to gauge how much we've improved and how we've built on some of the things we've been working on since last time we played them," he said.

"I'm expecting Eastern to play tougher. They know they have nothing to lose coming in here. It's a conference match. So, they're going to come out fired up."

UP NEXT: Montana stays home next week and hosts Lewis-Clark State in a nonconference doubleheader set for March 12 at 9:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. at the Peak in Missoula.

Griz return home, face Eagles Sunday in conference dual

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Players Mentioned

Sam Baldwin

Tom Bittner

Guillermo Martin

Fernando Perez

University of Montana Athletics