Griz head to Spokane for first road match on Sunday

Off to their second 5-0 start in three seasons, the Montana men's tennis team will face its toughest test of the year to date on Sunday as the Griz travel to Spokane to face the senior-laden Gonzaga Bulldogs.

The dual is the first road match of the year for the Grizzlies, who opened the season with a run of home wins inside the Peak Racquet Club in Missoula that included a 4-1 thriller over Grand Canyon.

The Bulldogs enter the match at 2-2 on the season with a pair of wins over Big Sky teams at home – 6-1 over both Eastern Washington and Idaho.

But Gonzaga is coming off its first road trip of the year where it dropped a pair of matches in Nebraska, falling 3-4 to Omaha before getting shut out by the Cornhuskers 0-4.

The Griz and Zags get underway at 11 a.m. (MT) on Sunday at GU's Stevens Tennis Center. Links to live scoring and a live video stream of each court are available at GoGriz.com.

Montana hits the road buoyed by confidence from the winning streak as it enters familiar territory.

"Gonzaga is a super veteran squad that's been there a long time. We've played them every year, we know what to expect, we go to their fall tournament, and we know we've got a tough task in front of us there. We're going to go in there and nothing to lose, we can kind of play free and enjoy the challenge of it," said head coach Jason Brown.

"I think the guys are really excited. We've got a lot of momentum. We feel really good. They've really bonded together, and well, winning never hurts anything."

Just plain winning has been an understatement for the Griz so far this season.

Montana pitched a shut-out in four of its first five matches and only dropped one individual match in the 4-1 win over GCU to outscore its first five opponents by a combined 32-1.

Leading the way has been Fernando Perez, who has the team's most wins at 5-0 on the season and provided the heroics against GCU with the clincher to earn Big Sky Player of the Week honors.

Team captain and senior veteran Moritz Stoeger leads a veteran corps in the middle of the lineup who all sit at 4-0 in singles, including all-conference pick as a freshman Tom Bittner and newcomer Chris Zhang.

For Stoeger, Montana's depth might be the advantage when they head to GU on Sunday.

"The boys are feeling great. We've had a great start to the season. Everybody is feeling confident. I think we've made some great adjustments, great improvements recently and now we're excited to get to compete against Gonzaga. It's a huge opportunity for us," he said.

"We learned in that Grand Canyon match that we can depend on each other, and I think everybody's ready to step it up when they're needed. So, we just have a lot of confidence because we know that we can beat good teams."

UP NEXT: Montana returns to the road for a pair of matches in Grand Forks Feb. 24 and 25, taking on Marquette in a neutral site dual and capping the trip against North Dakota.

Griz head to Spokane for first road match on Sunday

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Players Mentioned

Tom Bittner

Fernando Perez

Moritz Stoeger

Chris Zhang

University of Montana Athletics