USU men’s tennis beat UM for third straight year
Having a deep team is something Utah State men’s tennis coach Chris Wright counted on at the start of the season.
Unfortunately for USU, thanks to injuries and the slow process of having Italy native and freshman Hannes Schenk cleared to play by the NCAA, the Aggies have been shorthanded all year.
However, for the first time this year, the Aggies had their full squad, and Wright said it made a big difference in USU’s 5-2 victory over the University of Montana on Wednesday at the Sports Academy.
“Our depth was big down the line,” he said. “We kind of felt that was the way it would hopefully pan out.”
With Schenk playing at the No. 1 singles spot, the other Aggie players were able to drop down a spot, and it paid dividends as USU picked up victories in the No. 3 through 6 spots.
Of course, team depth doesn’t make too much of a difference if the players come out flat, which was not the case Wednesday, said Aggie sophomore Ryan Bair.
“It [depth] was big time, especially with Jordan [Butler], Brandon [Butler] and Jason [Trask] playing so well,” he said. “They were mentally tough and they just fought it out today. We were obviously the deeper team.”
While depth played a factor in singles, it didn’t hurt that Utah State won two of the three doubles matches to capture the doubles point and a 1-0 lead. The Aggies (5-10) are 11-3 over the past two seasons when capturing the doubles point.
In doubles action, USU’s No. 2 tandem of Trask and Brandon, and Montana’s No. 3 tandem of Ryan O’Neill and Varun Giri picked up relatively easy wins, prevailing 8-1 and 8-3, respectively.
In a much closer match, USU’s Jonah Nelson – who played singles for the first time since spraining his ankle against BYU on Jan. 30 – and Jordan squeaked by Jan Steenekamp and Stan Nevolovich, 8-6 in No. 1 doubles.
“I thought we played within ourselves,” Wright said. “We didn’t look impatient. We weren’t forcing the shots when they weren’t there.”
Playing with patience proved to be a big factor as all of Utah State’s wins? wins in singles were close matches, with two of them being decided in three sets.
At the No. 3 spot, Trask dropped his first set to O’Neill, but was able to take control of the match in the second set with deft passing shots, beating O’Neill, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.
“Jason did start stepping into the court rather than playing so deep, and made him [O’Neill] hit half-volleys, made him hit off-balance volleys, and Jason came up with some good passing shots,” Wright said.
Andrew Marsh (No. 6 singles) picked up USU’s other three-set victory, despite trailing Grizzly Nick Tyree 5-3 in the third set super tiebreaker.
Down 5-3, Marsh won six straight points to take control of the match, and win, 6-1, 6-7, (10-7).
“He did a good job of continuing to bounce back,” Wright said. “That’s got to give him a little boost, a little more confidence. Any time you come through with a tough one like that, you should draw on that the next time.”
In other singles action, the Butler brothers were victorious in No. 4 and No. 5, with Brandon (No. 4) defeating Giri, 7-6, 6-3, and Jordan (No. 5) beating Gus Treyz, 7-6, 6-2.
Montana’s two match victories came at the No. 1 and 2 spots, with Steenekamp besting Schenk, 6-3, 6-3, and Nevolovich defeating Nelson, 6-2, 6-0. With their wins, Steenekamp and Nevolovich improved to a combined 16-6 on the season.
However, the rest of the Grizzly team hasn’t fared as well, and it was USU’s greater depth that allowed it to improve to 3-0 against Montana over the last three years.
Wednesday’s victory was also important, Bair said, in that it allowed the Aggies to rebound from their 4-3 heartbreaking loss to Nevada on March 15.
“That match was a heartbreaker, but that’s the way tennis goes,” he said. “You just have to bounce back, and we did.”
Utah State will return to action Wednesday when it travels to Ogden to take on Weber State University.
-jasonwturner@cc.usu.edu