Aggie men’s team continues ‘best-ever’ start
Behind the undefeated play over the course of two matches from senior Bryan Marchant, the USU men`s tennis team sent both Portland State and Nevada packing with 7-0 and 8-3 wins Friday and Saturday, respectively, at the Sports Academy and Racquet Club in downtown Logan.
The Aggies improved their overall record to 8-3, the best in school history. In defeating Nevada, USU’s 2-0 WAC mark is also their best conference start in three years.
Marchant said that despite not having the presence of their head coach, Christian Wright, who was in Las Vegas with the women’s tennis team, nor with senior Alex Thatcher, one of their top players, on Saturday, the Aggies did plenty right to earn the unblemished weekend.
“It was interesting because we weren’t at full strength, but we came in prepared,” said Marchant of the win over Portland State.
The Vikings had defeated the Aggies in Portland in 2009.
“We came into this game hungry because of what happened before, and didn’t underestimate them,” Marchant said. “We played our game, and stayed focused.”
USU roared out of the gate Friday, claiming each doubles spot and capturing the doubles point. Leading the way was sophomore Sven Poslusny and Marchant, winning the number one doubles position 8-6 over Portland State’s Chrise Rice and Roman Margoulis. Seniors Jakob Asplund and Nikita Ryashchenko won at the number three position in a quick 8-2 triumph over Portland State’s Vetu Mam and Jeff Cero.
In singles action, Poslusny pulled a 7-6, 7-6, win over Rice at number one singles. The young freshman Fredrik Peterson battled and won at the number three singles position, 5-7, 6-4, 6-3, over the Vikings’ Mitch Somach. The Aggies finished out the match winning each position in two sets.
Marchant was surprised by the Aggies’ ease in claiming the first of back-to-back matches against the Big Sky Conference foe.
“We expected to win for sure, but after the match we were kinda like ‘wow, we didn’t expect to win by that much,'” he said. “We thought it would be closer than it was. It was smoother than expected, you could say.”
Marchant added that the Aggies had previous experience facing Portland State in some exhibition match-ups in the fall.
Poslusny and Marchant took an 8-3 doubles match victory to spark the win over the Wolf Pack in their lone Western Athletic Conference home match of the season.
The Aggies are now 8-0 when the pair wins, while going 0-3 when the two fall in their doubles competition.
In the second position of doubles action, Asplund and Ryashchenko fell to the Wolf Pack duo of Kristian Kuharszky and Victor Ouvrard. The third spot of doubles play was forfeited by Nevada, as they did not have six players to fill the doubles slot.
Marchant said though the Pack were hindered by a shortage of players, his team’s early doubles success propelled the victory.
“Definitely, what happened is they were a bit short-handed, but we just kinda from the start got a big lead and never looked back,” he said. “We shut them down from the start.”
In singles action, Marchant provided the drama of the match, having been locked in a battle with Nevada’s Quentin Mege. Marchant and Mege split the opening two sets 6-3, 3-6, leading to a thrilling third set which was claimed by Marchant, 7-5. Marchant scored the winning point for the Aggies seconds after Asplund finished off Ouvrard in three sets in the second position.
It was a surprising win even for the victor Marchant, who said that he had been battling a case of the flu for a week.
Asplund dropped the opening set, 4-6, but battled hard to capture the second frame to force a third set before surging past Ouvrard 6-0.
The battles in the midst of an overall large disparity of a final score was something to be expected, especially in conference battles, Marchant said.
“We knew we could win on the road and that it would be tough, but we’ve been extremely confident,” said Marchant, referring to an early-season conference-opening win over New Mexico State in Las Cruces that helped set a new bar for success for this season’s team.
Both the Nevada win and the win over the southern Aggies were critical because not every team in the WAC qualifies for the conference tournament, Marchant said.
“We put a lot of importance on (Nevada) and were not yet not satisfied with what we accomplished, so we came in hungry and looking to take advantage.”
A hunger that has already driven milestones in a still-young season, including a national ranking for the first time in school history, a win over archrival Utah, and a current perch atop the rest of the conference, besides the best start through 11 games in USU men’s tennis history.
“We’re just wanting to keep rolling, wanting to keep betting better every match and not getting complacent,” Marchant said. “Especially having two matches at home this past weekend, we wanted to take advantage. We just want to keep getting better, to reach our peak.”
The Aggies now prep for a three–match road trip next weekend. Action begins Thursday, Feb. 24 as Utah State faces SMU, followed with a match Friday, Feb. 25 against Collin County CC, and concludes Saturday, Feb. 26 against UT–Arlington.
– rhett.wilkinson@aggiemail.usu.edu