Griz head to North Dakota for pair of duals

The Montana men's tennis team returns to the road this weekend looking to rebound from its first loss of the season in a pair of duals in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

The Griz (5-1) open the road trip with a neutral site match against Marquette (2-6) on Saturday at 3 p.m. MT. They cap the trip on Sunday against the hometown Fighting Hawks (2-9) at 2:30 p.m. with both matches set to be played at Choice Health and Fitness in Grand Forks.

Links to a live stream of the match against UND can be found at GoGriz.com.

It's the penultimate weekend of nonconference play for Montana with the start of Big Sky play sitting just around the corner, giving the Griz just their second opportunity to test themselves on the road.

It's also a revenge tour of sorts, with UM falling to Marquette in a neutral match at Utah in back in 2019, and North Dakota becoming one of just five teams to beat the Grizzlies in Missoula under head coach Jason Brown in the 2023 season opener.

After dropping a close one at Gonzaga last week, Montana heads to Grand Forks looking to build consistency on the road.

"We're excited about the trip. We have two weeks before we start conference play and getting these away matches, getting guys comfortable with travel, hotels, meals out and each other is just essential to performing well on the court," said Brown.

"North Dakota will be a good, competitive D-I match and I expect them to be super tough at home. They basically have a new team from the one saw last year so we're not exactly sure what to expect. Then, the last time we saw Marquette was after we almost beat Utah and came out the next day and just got drummed across the board. So it will be nice to have the opportunity to avenge a couple losses that still sort of sting a little bit."

At 5-1, the Grizzlies have enjoyed a strong start to the season, loading up on wins at home in Missoula that included a 4-1 thriller over Grand Canyon and a 7-0 sweep of Eastern Washington in a nonconference tussle.

UM doubles pair Tom Bittner and Chris Zhang came out on the short end of a tiebreaker that could have given the Griz an early lead against the Zags after another tiebreaker, this time a win on court three from Moritz Stoeger and Baltazar Wiger-Nordas.

Bittner and Stoeger were the only Grizzlies to manage wins in the singles round, however, as GU earned a hard-fought 5-2 win at home last week in Spokane.

"I'm proud of the way the guys competed at Gonzaga. We've been studying film all week to fix a few errors and they have responded well in practice, so we feel really good headed on this trip," added Brown.

Gonzaga was the first road trip, and the toughest test to date for the Grizzlies, who have otherwise breezed to wins this season.

Three of UM's top six players have racked up five singles wins individually this year, with Bittner and Stoeger remaining undefeated at 5-0. Also at five win is Fernando Perez at 5-1, who was named the Big Sky Player of the Week for the first time in his career earlier this month.

SCOUTING MARQUETTE: The Golden Eagles head to Grand Forks from Milwaukee as winners of two matches this season, the first 5-2 at Chicago State and second 45-2 against Eastern Illinois. Among their six losses, they've been shut out three times by Illinois State, Richmond and Omaha, but also have managed individual wins against the likes of Indiana and Dayton.

Senior Jan Jauch leads the Golden Eagles with a 3-5 singles record in duals, while the doubles pair of Tin Krstulovic and Blake Roegner are undefeated at 3-0 on court one together.

SCOUTING NORTH DAKOTA: UND has a completely new roster from the one that beat UM and finished third in the Summit League last year.

One player from that team, Gerhard Sullwald, was in Missoula recently playing for Grand Canyon, and split sets in an unfinished singles match with Wiger-Nordas.

The Fighting Hawks enter the weekend at 2-9 with a young team of five of the eight players still underclassmen. Their lone wins of the year have come at home, however, 4-3 over D-III Gustavus Adolphus and 7-0 over Lindenwood.

In comparative matches, UND lost 1-6 to Idaho State in a neutral site match, and 2-5 at North Alabama, where two Grizzlies (Perez and Zhang) transferred in from.

Records out the window, the lack of familiarity is expected to pay dividends for the Griz.

"It's just fun to see new teams we don't see in the Northwest often. Now we just get to go play tennis, adjust on the fly, and see what we can do. It's a great way to get better and not have the feeling of like, 'I beat this guy twice in the fall and how am I going to do in the spring?' Or 'Who's gotten better? Who hasn't?' It's kind of fun. So, I'm excited about the challenge," said Brown.

UP NEXT: Montana is back on the road and heading to Colorado's Front Range for a pair of duals in Denver, facing the Summit League's first-place DU Pioneers and a neutral site match against Wichita State of the American Conference on March 1 and 2, respectively.

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Players Mentioned

Tom Bittner

Fernando Perez

Moritz Stoeger

Baltazar Wiger-Nordas

Chris Zhang

University of Montana Athletics