Tennis defeats Idaho at home
Utah State men’s tennis (6-5, 0-0 MW) swung big in all out slugfest against the Idaho Vandals (5-7, 1-1 WAC) Friday morning at the Sports Academy and Racquet Club in Logan.
Facing their former WAC rival, the Aggie won 4-3 for their third straight home victory.
“It’s awesome, Idaho has been one of the top-ranked teams in the region,” said first year head coach Clancy Shields. “For our guys I know it’s small but watch out, it’s an exciting thing for our team, a lot of confidence.”
Scraping by with a victory in two of the three doubles matches, the Aggies took a one point team lead. Matt Sweet and Sebastian Schneider started things off winning 8-1 over Matt Oddonetto and Odon Barta from Idaho.
The Vandals tied things up quickly with a doubles win, but it didn’t hold up. Utah State’s duo of Dennis Baumgartner and Marcus Fritz took out Jose Bendeck and Cristobal Salazar 8-7 in a tiebreaker. Bendeck and Salazar were the top-ranked doubles team in the Mountain Division according to Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA).
“We did what we had to do,” said Baumgartner, who won two matches against ranked opponents today. “We played free and had fun. We never gave in, we just fought hard.”
Singles action started off on the right foot for Idaho when senior Jose Bendeck, No. 10 in ITA rankings, defeated Marcus Fritz 6-2, 6-2 in straight sets. The Vandals kept rolling to score another team point from Cristobal Salazar as he beat USU’s Fredrik Peterson 7-5, 6-4.
Once again spurred by team captain Baumgartner, the Aggies rallied. Baumgartner won 7-6, 6-4 over Artemiy Nikitin who is ranked at No. 12 by ITP. At the same time Vandal’s player Odon Barta fell 6-4, 6-4 to junior Matt Sweet.
“Sebastian and I played really well in doubles and we just kept rolling,” said Sweet, who is now 6-0 in his last six matches. “In singles, the kid I was playing (Barta) was a really good player, but I kept scrapping, and fighting, and made a win on the ball.”
USU’s Sean Levesque clinched the win for the team in straight sets 6-2, 6-1 against freshman Sam Laudon of Idaho. In the final match of the day the crowd rallied around Aggie freshman Sebastian Scheider. Playing Idaho’s Cesar Torres, Schneider easily won the first set 6-2. Torres took the second set 6-4 and in the end home-court advantage wasn’t enough for Schneider who fell to Torres in a third set tiebreak.
“I like seeing improvement. It’s a testament to our program that were doing the right things,” Shields said. “It’s going to be a statement across our region that Utah State is a good program.”
The Aggies will face Arizona March 13 in Tuscon before opening Mountain West Conference play just one day later, still in Tuscon, matched up with Fresno State. The first serve will be at 1:00 p.m. for both of the matches.
– kalen.s.taylor@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @kalen_taylor