Though the Grizzlies tied for No. 2 in the Big Sky with a 6-2 conference finish, the University of Montana men’s tennis team will enter the Big Sky Conference tournament Saturday at Gold River, Calif., as the fourth seed. Montana will play its 3:00 p.m. MT match vs. 7-1 BSC Sacramento State.
The Hornets, picked to win the Big Sky in the preseason coaches’ poll, showed a beatable quality, dropping their first match 6-1 to Northern Arizona at home. Montana would later take a 4-3 win over NAU at the same venue.
Montana will enter play Saturday off a four-match winning streak. The Grizzlies used that streak to climb into second place Big Sky tie, winning their last four matches against conference opponents.
Sacramento State has lost its last four matches, all vs ranked teams. Notable is Scaramento’s 3-4 loss to No. 57 Santa Clara. The Grizzlies suffered a 6-1 loss at Santa Clara, garnering their only point from Mike Facey’s win at No. 5.
Due to a head-to head, 6-1 loss to the Hornets, and a 4-3 loss to Weber State, Montana falls below the Wildcats and the Lumberjacks, both 6-2 Big Sky teams, on those tiebreakers for Saturday’s semifinal.
In the March 28 meeting between the Grizzlies and the Hornets, junior David Cysneiros found the only Grizzly win of the match. Cysneiros finished out Big Sky play with a 6-1 conference record.
The Grizzlies, strong at Nos. 4-6 through their last four matches, had a close match at No. 5 with freshman Mike Facey, who dropped his match in two close sets at the last meeting with SAC. Facey owns the strongest singles record for the Grizzlies, having gone 10-5 during spring play.
Also performing well for the team that won the majority of its matches with four singles wins were South Africans Carl Kuschke and Josh Smith, who went 9-6 at Nos. 1 and 4 respectively.
With Montana dropping its doubles matches vs. Sacramento by slim margins at Nos. 2 and 3, gaining that point in the competition seems quite feasible. Grizzlies Timo Gehrke and Raydner Ramos dropped the No. 2 match 8-6 while Mikolaj Borkowsi and Cysneiros dropped theirs at 9-7 at No. 3.
In Missoula last weekend, Montana took the doubles point over Montana State, banking on a strong win by Gehrke and Ramos.
Also playing well in doubles are Kuschke and Smith, who lost their Sacramento State contest 8-3 to No. 64 Kiryl Harbatsiuk and Marko Starcevik. Smith and Kuschke won their last four matches together.
Also winning his last four matches were Facey and Cysneiros.
Senior Mikolaj Borkowski will face Sacramento State head-to-head for the eighth time in his collegiate career. The Grizzly said, “I have faced all of Sacramento’s top three guys. In our match earlier this year, I played pretty badly, so I will be looking to do better Saturday. Fortunately, I can learn from that experience as well.
“We played Sacramento earlier on in our season, when we had very little time on the courts or outside. I felt like our team didn’t start playing well until after that spring break trip.
“In the conference tournament, it doesn’t really matter that we ended up playing the first seed. When your goal is to win, you will have to beat the best team regardless of when you play them. We have a lot of momentum coming in off of the perfect weekend at home and four wins in a row.”
Head men’s tennis coach Kris Nord will be taking his 20th consecutive team to the Big Sky Championship. The 28-year UM coach said, “I was pretty happy with our second-place finish in the Big Sky, but now our goal is to beat that No. 1 team.
“This season has been all about providing the environment for these athletes to improve. Between finding court time and waiting out bad weather, our guys didn’t hit their stride until the later part of the season. They showed great response through a season on the road, and now we are prepared to play a team that has shown that they can be beaten within the conference.”
Montana takes to the courts in Gold River Saturday at 3:00 p.m. MT.