Men’s tennis earns pair of home wins
The Utah State men’s tennis team served up a doubleheader Saturday at the Sports Academy and Racquet Club against Weber State University and Colorado Mesa.
The Aggies improved to 5-5 on the season with two team victories. USU picked up a signature win from Matt Sweet on their way to the 4-2 final against Weber State, while cruising to a 6-1 win playing Colorado Mesa.
“It’s been close but playing in front of the crowd and having all the people here just to cheer you on really helps you a lot,” said junior Marcus Fritz. “I fed off that today, they did a great job to lift us up and get that win.”
The Aggies jumped out to an early 1-0 team lead after sweeping the three doubles matches against the Wildcats. Weber State came roaring back into play by winning all four of the first sets for singles.
The score was evened at 1-1 as WSU’s Todd Fought defeated USU’s Fredrik Peterson in straight sets 6-4, 6-4. Matt Sweet, who played an incredible four matches on the day, came back from down 2-5 to defeat Caio Poitena 7-5 in the third set.
Weber State evened the team score at 2-2 with a win from Jakub Gewert 6-4, 5-7, 6-1 over freshman Dennis Baumgartner. USU clinched the team win 4-2 when the freshman from Sweden, Sebestian Schneider defeated the Wildcat’s Sanjay Goswami in straight sets 6-2, 6-1.
Later in the day against the Mavericks of Colorado Mesa, the Aggies were able to duplicate the doubles results, a 3-0 win, scoring one point. Colorado Mesa fought to the end in doubles but the closest match was an 8-6 loss by Andres Rojas and Trevor Brown Dylan Harlow and senior Andrew Whiting.
“A couple guys had to play two (matches) today and they were definitely fatigued for a bit,” said USU’s Curran Wearmouth. “I was really pleased with they way my teammates fought there, they were faced with some adversity but they came back big.”
In singles action, USU’s Schneider continued to roll as he was victorious 6-1, 6-0 over Andres Rojas. Aggie junior Sean Levesque was also the winner in straight sets over Colorado Mesa’s Cody Freischlag 6-2, 6-1. Adding one more Matt Sweet win to the total, USU clinched its second win of the day by scoring four team points.
Dennis Baumgartner picked up his first singles win late in the day against Utah native Jordan Lyden. Baumgartner won 6-1, 6-3 continuing the roll of straight set singles wins.
“The crowd was awesome they were fun, I really think they bought us a couple of points, which is big, it was awesome to have a great crowd today,” Wearmouth said.
CMU spoiled the hopes of a clean sweep by pulling through with a last minute win by Trevor Brown 6-3, 6-3 over USU senior Matt Thatcher.
“Somehow the guys found a way to win,” said USU head coach Clancy Shields. “We have 11 guys on our roster and 11 guys played today. That’s how deep this team is and how much confidence as a staff we have in our players.”
With a short amount of time until conference, the Aggies got two wins to move them forward on the season.
“We are going to take it and ride that wave into the mountain west conference matches and see how far it takes us,” Shields said.
Utah State is back in action at home playing Idaho on Feb. 28 before opening a road stand versus Arizona in Tucson on March 13 and Fresno State on March 14.
-kalen.s.taylor@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @kalen_taylor