USU men’s tennis takes down Northern Colorado

The No. 73 Utah State men’s tennis improved to 10-2 on the season with a 6-1 win against visiting Northern Colorado Friday morning.

The Aggies lost the early doubles point 2-1 with the lone win coming from Jaime Barajas and Karan Salwan. The Bears’ luck would soon run out as the Aggies swept the singles matches 6-0.

“Back to the drawing board on doubles,” said second-year coach Clancy Shields. “We’re going to have to get to work. I think our guys know that. It’s something that we work on every day, and we’re not making any progress. We’re going to have to get back to the basics.”

Salwan set the tone early with the first win of the day 6-0, 6-3. Marcus Fritz only dropped one game, leading to a comfortable 6-0, 6-1 win. Sophomore Dennis Baumgartner also won in straight sets 6-2, 6-3.

Barajas clinched the victory for the Aggies with a straight-set 6-4, 6-3 win. Matt Sweet won his first set 6-2. After trailing 2-5 in the second set, Sweet was able to come back and win the set 7-5. Jack Swindells finished off the singles sweep with a 6-3, 1-6, 6-1 victory.

“A win’s a win, but I think we’re all thinking that we’re going to have to go back and work a lot harder next week,” Shields said. “Our doubles really struggled today, but luckily singles has been our strong suit all season.”

The Aggies go back to work February 22 as they head to Bozeman, Montana to play a double-header against Montana State and Montana State-Billings.

joebaraiolo@gmail.com

Twitter: @joefish_2