The UW-Eau Claire Blugolds men’s tennis team held its first game of the season at the Menard Tennis Center on Saturday, Sept. 20 against the Carleton College Knights.
Their first game was supposed to be against Concordia College Cobbers on the same day, but that match was postponed. The match against the Knights also required some adjustments as it was moved indoors due to rain.
UW-Eau Claire men’s tennis coach Matt Boughton said this change might have benefited them a bit, as they are more used to practicing inside than other teams.
The Blugolds lost to the Knights 0-7, with their only win against Carleton in the last 10 years having been in 2019.
However, Boughton said the team has improved since their last game in February, despite losing many of their more experienced players and having a younger team.
“This year, the matches were more competitive,” Boughton said. “We got some sets, so (I’m) looking forward to next year when we beat them.”
Boughton said the team’s strategy going forward against Carleton will be working on their speed.
While all doubles matches were lost, there were some victories within the singles matches. Third-year student Pablo Rincon won his second game against opponent Baiyun Jing.
Additionally, both third and first-year players, Juan Gallego and Emilio Monge, took their first games against Jack Rivkin and Owen Heidtke.
“I think (Monge) would have had him if we just had a couple more weeks of conditioning. His legs seemed to give out a little bit in the third set,” Boughton said.
The next time to see the Blugold men’s tennis team on the court will be from Sept. 25-27 in Saint Peter, Minnesota, for the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Regionals. To prepare for regionals, Boughton said they’ve been trying to get more practice outdoors.
“With most of the matches being outdoors, we wanted to make sure that our first experience outdoors wasn’t that tournament,” Boughton said.
He said when it comes to playing outside, there are many more distractions, which is why they try to prioritize practicing outdoors.
The Blugold women’s tennis team played their fifth match of the season on Sept. 19 at the Midwest ITA Regional.
UW-Eau Claire women’s tennis coach Kyle Seyer said that due to weather delays, there were numerous technical difficulties, and players found themselves spread out across several cities.
“The tournament got fluctuated a little … but we did have a couple of players in the singles make it to the second round, and then in the doubles,” Seyer said. “We had two doubles teams qualify to the second round before they lost.”
Seyer said the weekend was successful overall.
The Blugolds kicked off their season by tying for fifth place at the Warhawk Invitational.
Since then, they have won two out of three of their matches, going 7-0 against both the UW-River Falls Falcons and the UW-Stout Blue Devils, but they lost 5-2 against the Warhawks on Sept. 13.
Seyer said he was happy with how the match against the Warhawks went.
“Probably one of the stronger performances record-wise we’d had with them in years past, so a lot of matches were competitive. It was a good test for us considering we’re a really young team,” Seyer said.
The matches were won by doubles partners Morgan Briggman and Stella Platt in their match against Gracie Ha and Abigail Weaver.
The other two wins came from the singles, where Aubrey Wittwer and Ana Paula Ricaurte defeated challengers Kaitlyn Remke and Abigail McIsaac.
“Aubrey’s kind of an unconventional tennis player since she plays a little different style. She really makes her opponents work for every point and play a lot of balls, and that tends to frustrate opponents,” Seyer said.
The Blugolds women’s tennis team will have their next match on Sept. 27 against the Ripon College Redhawks.
Seyer said the Redhawk game will be a chance to see younger members getting to play while others are recovering from sickness or injury.
Curtin can be reached at [email protected].
