Men's tennis unable to close the deal on first Big Sky road trip

Saturday, February 23

Pocatello, Idaho

10AM

University of Northern Colorado

Idaho State

2/23/2019 7:48:00 PM | Men's Tennis

Box Score

By: Dylan Morey

Despite remaining in contention for the entire match, the Bears failed to end the Wildcats winning streak in a close loss to Weber State 5-2.

After Julian Kenzlers and Alex Exsted dropped the No. 3 match to Nick Werner and Cezary Walkusz 6-1, the No. 2 pairing of Michael Kritzinger and Adolfo Arroyo tied things up with the Wildcats with a 6-4 win.

The doubles point came down to the No. 1 matchup between Kyle Pease/Tommy Smalley and Kris van Wyk/Michiel Van Schoor. Facing the pressure with the doubles point on the line, Pease and Smalley were able to grind out the win 7-5.

Things did not go the same way for the Bears in singles, with the Wildcats claiming victories from the No. 1, 4, and 6 spots before Tommy Smalley was able to get a point on the board with a win in the No. 5 spot over Junhao Ye 6-2, 6-2.

The Wildcats were able to secure the win from a tight contest in the No. 3 matchup of Julian Kenzlers and Bo-Han Li. After falling in the first set 3-6, Kenzlers evened things up with a 6-3 win of his own. The third set came down to the wire, resulting in a 7-5 win for Li, and a win for the Wildcats.

The Bears fall to 5-6 on the season and will get their next shot at a Big Sky Conference win when they travel up to Moscow, Idaho to battle the Vandals on March 8th.

The Bears traveled to Pocatello, Idaho for a Saturday morning matchup against Idaho State, falling to the Bengals 5-2.

No. 3 doubles pairing of Tommy Smalley and Alex Exsted began the day on a winning note with a 6-3 win against Francis Filipovich and Lukas Ridemar. The Bears dropped the No. 2 and No. 1 doubles matches 6-3 and 7-5 respectively, giving the doubles point to the Bengals.

The two wins in singles for the Bears came after the team found themselves down 4-0 in the match. It began with Alex Exsted in the No. 5 spot, who went three sets with Gary Rendek and ultimately came out on top by a score of 6-3, 4-6, 10-5 to earn the first point of the day for the team.

Adolfo Arroyo followed it up with his own three-set win against Fynn Lohse in the No. 3 spot. After losing the first set 4-6, Arroyo would take the second set 6-3, and finish it off 6-4 in the third.

The Bears will get a chance to end the weekend on a high note as they travel down to Ogden, Utah to take on the Wildcats of Weber State tomorrow morning.