Late injury leads Griz to heartbreaking loss

Sunday, April 5

Missoula, Mont.

9 AM

Montana

Northern Arizona

4/5/2026 5:02:00 PM | Men's Tennis

Box Score Photo Gallery

By: Montana Sports Information

College tennis matches just don't come any closer, and they just don't finish in such heartbreaking fashion.

In a battle between the Big Sky's last two undefeated squads and a rematch of last year's championship, the play on the court lived up to its billing as the Montana men's tennis team and Northern Arizona went blow-for-blow in a thriller that rested on a knife edge for each minute of the nearly five hour run time.

After a strong start by the Griz, Northern Arizona rallied at the Peak Racquet Club in Missoula to tie the dual 3-3, with the deciding match headed to a third and final set. When UM's Joseph Townes broke Daniels Tens' serve to go up 5-4, it looked as though Montana had the breakthrough it needed with the team win in sight.

But in a result no one wanted to see, an untimely leg cramp took Townes out of his game, allowing Tens to finish out the set with a 7-5 win, and the Lumberjacks left Missoula with a dramatic 4-3 victory.

"I'm proud of the fight. The margins between us and NAU were razor thin. They had some fortunate things happen, and hung around to put themselves in a spot to win. We had them, and I don't feel like we let them go. I think they just rose to the occasion. Real bad luck with Joseph cramping up. He played an unbelievable match and was serving for the win, then to cramp up – I'm just heartbroken for him," said head coach Jason Brown.

"The difference was just a deuce point here and a deuce point there, and I think they'd say the same thing if we would have won. That's really all it came down to. No one ever really broke away in any of the matches. It felt like they all could flip at any time. NAU just had enough of them flip their way to get through."

With just three conference matches left to play in the regular season, Montana falls to 10-7 and 3-1 in Big Sky play, while Northern Arizona improves to 14-5 and stays perfect on the season at 6-0 in league matches.

Montana started the match on the front foot, once again claiming the doubles point with just three games lost between courts one and three. Matt Upton and Johnny Wilkinson made quick work of the Tcherniack/Tens pair 6-1 on court three for UM's first win, while Duncan McCall and Baltazar Wiger-Nordas rolled to a 6-2 win over the Katsuda/Vohl pair on court one to clinch the point.

Doubles has been a strength for the Griz as of late, winning the team's seventh point in as many matches.

"Doubles continues just be impeccable. That's as good as I've ever seen a Grizzly team play doubles," added Brown.

Moving into singles, NAU hit back on court two where Jakub Jedrzejczak struggled through an injury to beat Wiger-Nordas in straight sets 6-4, 6-3, to knot the team score 1-1.

The NAU lead didn't last long, however, as soon after UM finished a straight-set win of its own when Duncan McCall rallied past Jakub Volesky 6-4, 6-2, on court three to wrestle the momentum back for Montana and give the Griz a 2-1 lead.

Then it was over to court four where Upton cruised to a 6-2 win in his first set, but as momentum changed in the Peak, so did his fortunes as Felix Neumeister came back to win the second set 6-4. The third set was anyone's match as both players battled for the advantage. Eventually though it was Neumeister who was able to hold on for the win in an extra game, taking the match 2-6, 6-4, 7-5, to tie dual again 2-2.

On court one Montana's Tom Bittner also felt the momentum shift in his second set after overpowering Noa Tcherniack in the first to send the match to a third. The two then battled their way to a deciding third set tiebreaker where Bittner fell behind 0-3 and it looked as though the UM No. 1 was out of gas. The UM senior found his serve and stormed back, however, with four-straight points in the breaker to take the lead, eventually holding on for a 6-2, 4-6, 7-6(4) win to put the Griz up 3-2.

The match was still up in the air as the bottom of the order took their courts, and again NAU took advantage of the momentum shift in the room on court six where Vincent Vohl needed a tiebreaker to get past Eivind Tandberg in the first set before Tandberg ran out of gas in the second, falling 6-7(1), 2-6, to again tie the overall dual 3-3.

With all eyes on Townes at court five, the Grizzly junior found himself in an dog fight as he rebounded from a first set loss to win the second and send the match to another third set to keep UM's hopes alive.

With the set tied 4-4, Townes landed some well-placed backhand returns to take a 30-0 lead against the serve, and stayed alive to win game in a long rally to break Tens' serve and take a 5-4 lead. With serve in hand it looked as though Townes had the win in the bag. That's when disaster struck.

While backed up to the curtain trying to get under a lob, Townes fell in pile on the court as a severe cramp took him down, and medical attention rushed to his side. After the cramp subsided, he tried to grit through the remainder of the match, but Tens was able to take advantage and seal the set win 7-5 to give NAU the 4-3 victory.

"We're going to take some positives from this. Our main goal is to win the conference tournament in Phoenix. A win today would have put us in the driver's seat for a regular season championship, but now we have to reload for Idaho State and focus on closing out the season strong," Brown added.

Montana returns to the Peak for two more home matches next week as the Griz host Idaho State on April 10 looking for redemption after falling to the Bengals in a neutral site, nonconference dual in March. The Griz then cap the four match home stand against Sacramento State on April 12.