Aggies top Bulldogs to stay perfect at home
Utah State’s men’s tennis team won over Gonzaga Sunday with a score of 5-2. The win pushed the Aggies’ record to 9-4 on the season, including a 6-0 record at home.
“It was a tough match,” said USU assistant coach Ben Mullis. “They came out ready. It was not necessarily the prettiest tennis, but it was good to get the job done.”
Freshman Jonas Maier was one of the keys to USU’s victory. He won both his double’s match, with junior Jack Swindells, and his single’s match to give the Aggies momentum.
“It was a tough fight, and I’m happy that we won,” Maier said. “We started quick with the singles, and that’s the key.”
Maier clinched the match for USU on a service ace.
“We’ve done a lot of work recently with Jonas on his serve,” Mullis said. “He’s really starting to use the whole court and is really confident at the net. The ability to play an all court game has played a large factor in him being able to scope opponents out, which he did today.”
Improvement has been one of the biggest topics the Aggie’s coaching staff has stressed this season, and they have seen a lot of improvement in the last few weeks. After a 1-3 start, USU has gone 8-1 and remained undefeated at home.
“We’re a young team with six freshmen,” Maier said. “We believe in ourselves and we believe that we can beat good teams. We’re undefeated at home, and that’s a good feeling.”
“We’ve put in some pretty good practice sessions,” Mullis said. “We started the season with some really tough ranked opponents on the road, and now we’ve had some home matches that we expected to win. Mentally, we’ve come a long way, with knowing they’ve put the work in come game day.”
The Aggies hope to continue their strong play as they head to California over spring break to play No. 70 Pacific.
“It was good to move forward (today) to be where we want to be heading into spring break,” Mullis said. “But moving forward, we’ve got some big opponents, Pacific being one of them. We’ve got some big challenges ahead of us.”
First serve against Pacific in Stockton, California is set for 3 p.m. on March 6.
— dawson.oler@gmail.com
Twitter: @DawsonOler