Men’s tennis wraps up 11-match road trip
Finishing a series of 11 straight road matches, the Utah State University men’s tennis team fell to BYU 7-0, Friday in Provo.
With the loss, the Aggies are now 4-9 on the season.
Play started with doubles, the one high point of the entire match, assistant coach Jevin West said.
The Aggies were unable to win any of the doubles matches, but kept the scores close.
Carlos Lozano and Gert Vilms defeated Andreas Madersbacher and Clayton Thomas, 8-6, Jeff Harbach and Jeff Olsen beat Jordan Butler and Sam Harris, 8-2, and Erik Nyman and Nic Losee won over Jason Trask and Steve Peterson, 8-4.
Playing against one of the top-ranked doubles teams in the country, West said Madersbacher and Clayton had a chance to go up with their match tied 6-6, but were unable to break the BYU serve. On the next point, BYU broke the Aggie serve for the 8-6 victory.
“That was the bright spot, one of the few,” West said.
Following the loss of the doubles point, the Aggies entered singles play, but were unable to win a set.
Lozano defeated Madersbacher, 6-2, 6-4, Vilms won over Thomas, 6-1, 6-2, Nyman beat Trask, 6-0, 6-2, Losee was victorious over Butler, 6-2, 6-2, Anton Rudjuk defeated Peterson, 6-2, 6-1, and Jose Luis Lechuga beat Sam Harris, 6-0, 6-1.
“We were competitive, putting together points, but weren’t able to put any games together,” West said.
One of the factors in the loss was the injuries to the team, West said.
Jonah Nelson is out for three weeks with a stress fracture in his arm, and Tadd Hinze has not played all season due to an elbow injury.
West said Peterson also has a stress fracture, Butler is going in for an examination because he may have a stress fracture and Trask was playing with a pulled muscle.
“We’re about as beat up as you can be,” West said.
Another factor may have been playing so many matches on the road, West said.
“They’re not getting their rest, they’re missing classes and are worried about that. It’s definitely a factor,” he said.
West said the loss was the team’s worst of the season, but they can take a lot away from it.
“Hopefully we’ll take away that we don’t want it to happen again,” he said. “The most important matches are the conference matches. If we can get out of this lull and go up, this match won’t even matter at the end of the season.”
The Aggies will return home for the first time since the match against the Air Force Academy on Jan. 18 to host in-state rival Weber State.