Griz sweep Vikings 7-0

Saturday, April 8

Missoula, Mont.

Noon

Montana

Portland State

4/8/2023 7:12:00 PM | Men's Tennis

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By: Montana Sports Information

The Montana men's tennis team got off the schneid and snapped a three-match losing streak in emphatic fashion at the Peak Racquet Club in Missoula on Saturday.

The Griz (10-9, 2-4 Big Sky) swept a strong Portland State (6-12, 1-4 BSC) squad 7-0 on their home turf with another win in the doubles round – their third-straight – and wins on all six singles courts.

With just two weeks left in the regular season, the victory over fifth-place PSU greatly improves sixth-place Montana's chance of advancing to the Big Sky championship tournament in Phoenix, with only the top six seeds in the standings advancing.

As has been the message to his young team all season long, head coach Jason wants the Grizzlies to be playing their best tennis in the month of April, and today was a big step toward that goal.

"The thing I'm happy about is it feels like we hadn't had everything come together all at once this year, and it finally did today. And obviously, I like taking three doubles points in a row, which I think makes us pretty tough to beat in conference," said Brown.

If the Griz were to have any hope of playing in the postseason, today was a must-win, and the players knew it.

With the pressure dialed up the Grizzlies responded, grinding out wins in four-of-four three-set matches, with two clean straight-set wins.

"Everybody came out today and just knew what we had to do. We all knew we had to win, and that's what we did. We came out firing. We came here to win and not to not-lose, and that's the most important thing," said junior Moritz Stoeger, who bounced back from a first-set loss to win his match in the third to clinch the win for the Griz.

"Today wasn't my best day, but I just had to dig deep and fight and show that I can win when I'm not playing well. I just wanted to make the boys proud, keep fighting, and find a way to win in the end."

For the third-straight match, Montana brought the juice early, building leads on all three courts before eventually clinching the doubles point for the 1-0 team lead.

Stoeger and George Russell combined for a dominant win on court two, controlling the serve to run out to a 3-0 lead before beating PSU's Brignacca/Kuszyynski pair 6-1 for the first win of the day.

The Griz clinched the point with a win on court three, where Gustav Theilgaard and Tom Bittner also started strong, breaking the PSU serve to win the opening point. They went on to break serve again in the winner, beating PSU's Zuellig/Jovanovic pair 6-3 to take the opening team point.

In singles, Bittner started strong like he did on Friday, but this time kept the foot to the floor to avoid the letdown. After a clean win in the first set, the freshman broke PSU's serve in the second to take the lead 2-1 and never looked back, rolling over Andrin Zuellig 6-1, 6-1 for UM's first win of the round.

Theilgaard also avenged a Friday loss by cruising to a straight-set win on court one over Andrea Brignacca. The Grizzly sophomore picked up a big break in the second set to go up 4-1 and eased to victory from there to win the match 6-2, 6-1 and put the Griz up 3-0 in the team score.

The Grizzlies clinched the win on court three, with Stoeger battling his way to a come-from-behind win in three sets over Luka Jovanovic. After dropping the first set, the junior broke Jovanovic's serve in the second for a big momentum swing that tied the set 2-2. With the serve, he then went up 3-2 in the second and rode the momentum shift to victory, winning 2-6, 6-2, 6-2.

The win put UM up for good at 4-0 with three courts still in play.

Fernando Perez put the Griz up 5-0 after pulling away in a three-set win over Jonas Mathiasen on court three. Perez won his first and third sets in short order but dropped the second in a marathon tiebreaker after getting broke on match point with serve at 6-5. The Spaniard found his form in the third, however, winning 6-0, 6-7 (8), 6-1.

Guillermo Martin and Russell closed out the winning for the Griz, each taking a third-set superbreaker to complete the sweep for Montana.

The Griz now prepare to head south, looking for a pair of upsets. Montana faces the Big Sky No. 1 NAU Lumberjacks at altitude in Flagstaff on April 14, then travels to Vegas for a make-up match against UNLV the following day.

The Big Sky tournament is scheduled for April 27-29 at the Phoenix Tennis Center in Arizona.