Men’s tennis falls to Boise State, Utah State to close out regular season
While the rest of the Big Sky closed out the regular season with conference matches, the Idaho men’s tennis team played its final two games against two nonconference teams and ended up losing both.
Boise State (12-15, 4-3 Mountain West) was the first opponent last Saturday. The Vandals’ rival handled them with ease, winning 6-1. The Broncos won all three doubles matches, as Lewis Roskilly and Thomas Tenreiro beat Cristobal Ramos Salazar and Jackson Varney in the No. 1 doubles match. Odon Barta and Felipe Fonseca dropped the No. 2 match and Alberto Sanz and Mark Kovacs lost the No. 3.
Singles was more of the same for Idaho (14-11, 8-3), as Fonseca was the lone victor. The freshman handled Tenreiro easily in the No. 2 singles match, but Barta narrowly fell in the No. 1 match to BSU’s Garrett Patton. Both Kovacs in the No. 4 singles match and Varney in the No. 5 match barely lost to their opponents, as both needed a third match to settle the score.
Next up was nationally ranked Utah State (18-8, 5-2 Mountain West), which came into the match ranked No. 62 in the country. Amid unfinished matches and injuries, the Vandals fell to the Aggies 4-0.
Varney and Ramos Salazar lost the No. 1 doubles match to Karan Salwan and Matt Sweet, while Kovacs and Sanz lost the No. 3 to Dennis Baumgartner and Marcus Fritz. The lone doubles victory came from the pairing of Barta and Fonseca in the No. 2 doubles match.
Fonseca lost the No. 1 singles match to Salwan, while Sanz lost the No. 5 and Sam Jankovich lost the No. 6. The other three matches went unfinished.
“Today was a tough match against a solid, nationally ranked team,” Idaho coach Jeff Beaman said. “Another day of some positives, but not quite enough.”
This wasn’t the only bad part of the USU game though, as one of Idaho’s top players, Barta, went down with an injury. His status going into the Big Sky Tournament is unknown, but Beaman is hopeful.
“You hate to get injuries at this point in the year,” Beaman said. “Hopefully Odon (Barta) is back for the conference tournament.”
Weber State officially won the Big Sky regular season championship, finishing 15-9 with a 10-1 conference record. Idaho lost to the Wildcats 5-2 back on March 16.
Idaho sits in a three-way tie with Montana and Montana State with 8-3 Big Sky records. Sacramento State and Northern Arizona both finished tied for fifth with 7-4 conference records. The Vandals will receive a first round bye when the conference tournament begins Friday in Sacramento, California.
Ben Evensen can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @BenE_VN