Weber State University Athletics
Weber State University
Brigham Young
Wildcats Drop Opener to BYU 5-2
1/13/2014 4:44:00 PM | Men's Tennis
PROVO, Utah -- The Weber State men's tennis team opened up the 2014 season on Saturday with a strong performance, but the Wildcats ultimately dropped a 5-2 decision to Brigham Young.
The Wildcats started impressively, taking two of the three doubles matches to secure the event's first point. Jakub Gewert and Todd Fought defeated Andrey Goryachkov and Nikki Rae 6-4 in the No. 2 doubles match. BYU looked to have the point won at No. 3 as they took a 5-1 lead in a tiebreaker, but WSU's Caio Poitena and James Smith fought to back to win the tiebreak 6-5 win over Matthew Pearce and Jacob Sullivan at No. 3 to clinch the point.
Weber State was unable to translate that momentum into enough singles wins, despite some strong performances, as the Cougars stormed back to claim the win.
Landon Barlow, playing his first regular season match since returning from an LDS mission, earned the lone WSU singles point as he defeated Aidan Carrazedo 6-4, 6-5 in the No. 5 match.
Fought and Oliver Good each won the opening set in their respective matches, but ultimately dropped three-setters. Sanjay Goswami also claimed a first set win, before falling in a tiebreak third set with the team match having already been decided.
"BYU is ranked 45th in the country, and for us to be this close to beating them this early in the season shows what a good team we have this year," said WSU head coach Brad Ferreira. "I was pleased with the play of everyone. We fought a good fight, but just came up a little short.
"We were up a set in a couple of matches, and were really close to getting the lead back. If some of the deciding points--with the new sudden-death point at deuce--and a couple of close calls had gone our way, things would have been different. We put ourselves in a position to have a shot at beating a very good team, so that is very encouraging as we begin our season."
New scoring rules have been implemented for this season. Doubles matches will play to six games instead of eight, and singles play a tiebreak at 5-5 instead of 6-6. Add scoring has also been eliminated, leading to the sudden-death point at deuce that the Wildcats faced in a couple of matches on Saturday.
Players Mentioned
