The Blugold men’s tennis team swept away the competition this past weekend against two Minnesota teams with an 8-1 win over the College of St. Scholastica Friday and an 8-1 victory over Bethel University Sunday.
The wins leave Eau Claire with a 14-5 record this season.
Junior Joe Meier said the team was expecting it to not be too difficult of a weekend.
They had played both teams before and knew what to do to succeed in the weekend’s competition.
“Everyone on our team played pretty solid … everyone was pretty solid in singles and doubles,” Meier said.
The Blugolds went undefeated in singles play throughout the weekend and two doubles pairs won both of their matches.
Ryan Vande Linde, in the No. 1 singles spot, won in two sets both Friday and Sunday.
He won with a 6-4, 6-2 score over St. Scholastica and a 6-0, 6-3 score against Bethel.
Meier, in the No.2 singles spot; Florent Marco, at the No.3 spot; and Brayden Parman, at No.5 Friday and No. 6 Sunday, all won both matches over the weekend in singles competition.
With the success against St. Scholastica and Bethel in the past, Meier said the team is thinking about competition against Luther College (Ill.) in Iowa on April 13.
“Going into it with the right mind set and knowing it’s going to be a challenge; they’re not going to give us any free games or free matches … they will be a tough match, so just going in with that positive mind set I guess will probably be the best thing we can do,” Meier said.
One challenge the Blugolds are hoping to overcome by the Luther match is injury. Meier said a few of the guys, including himself, Marco and Vande Linde, have injured ankles.
“I think mainly what we are trying to do is basically just get healthy for this weekend,” he said.
Meier, who has been recovering from two ankle sprains from a month ago, still has trouble moving from side-to-side on the court, but he said he is able to play.
Marco said he thinks he will be ready to go by Saturday but the team will need to be mentally prepared.
“Sometimes we kind of think of other teams as better than us, but in reality we are at their level and we can beat them,” Marco said.
The team has really improved throughout the course of the season, Marco said.
They have a solid team and it is really deep. Although the team has players ranked at No.1 singles or No. 3 singles, Marco said the men are really at the same level.
“We’re a really deep team and may not win all the tough spots, but we usually do well at the bottom spots,” Marco said.
The team will next play at Luther College in Iowa on Friday and they will play two opponents in Madison on Sunday.
