Aggie tennis aces Redhawks
The USU men’s tennis team had a great team effort against the Seattle Redhawks to come away with a 5-2 team win on Friday at the Sports Academy and Racquet Club.
In a competitive match with long rallies from both teams, the Redhawks and the Aggies battled back-and-forth, but fueled by the play of freshman phenom and Dennis Baumgartner and senior Fredrik “Freddy” Peterson, USU swung big and took the victory.
“We really wanted to bring the energy and focus and everything we know we have to bring to win,” said Peterson, who won both his singles and doubles matches. “Especially at home, we always need to bring that focus and mentality.”
The Aggies won two out of the three doubles matches to take one team point early on. Later on in singles play, the Redhawks evened the score as Seattle’s Will Topp defeated Marcus Fritz.
With the team score tied, USU rallied with wins by Peterson and Baumgartner. With a team lead of one and the stands screaming, Baumgartner gave the Aggies a 3-1 lead as he finished off Kevin Lynch in a two set tiebreaker match.
USU then sealed the deal and ended hopes of a comeback with victories by Sebastian Schneider and Matt Sweet.
“It feels good,” said Sweet, a Utah native. “(We) worked really hard in practice this week. We came out, played well and got a good win.”
The Redhawks got one more win in by the end of the day from freshman Connor Leahy, who beat Canadian Curran Wearmouth in a third-set tiebreaker, 3-6, 6-1, 10-1.
“There are no really quick easy wins, every single point matters … You have to be prepared and do everything to win,” Peterson said.
USU hopes to keep things rolling while on the road against a nationally-ranked University of Utah team this weekend. The Aggies then open a three-match home-stand on Feb. 22 against Weber State before moving into conference play, which starts in March.
With a new coaching staff and a new conference in the Mountain West, USU has their sights set high.
“We have a chance. It’s going to be tough, but overall, we are there. We are in the middle. Every conference match is tougher than a regular season match,” said Sven Poslusny, assistant coach under Clancy Shields. “It’s all going to come down to every single guy that is on the court. We will see at the end of April where we are at and go from there.”
– kalen.s.taylor@aggiemail.usu.edu