The UW-Eau Claire men’s tennis team has high aspirations for this season after its tournament at Gustavus Adolphus College (Minn.) this past weekend.

“I really expect this team to move up in the Midwest rankings this year based on the experience we have coming back and the talent I see from the freshmen,” senior Matt Widder said.

The team competed in the Intercollegiate Athletic Association Midwest Regional Championship this past weekend. All five of the singles players made it past the first round, but it was only Widder who advanced further.

“I got a first round bye, beat a kid from Concordia (Minn.), beat the 11th seed from St. Olaf (College, Minn.) and then lost to the No. 1 seed in three sets,” Widder said.

In addition to Widder’s wins, he said the freshman competition went quite well for the Eau Claire team.

“The fact that we had two doubles teams get to the final speaks a lot about the depth that we’re going to have on this team,” Widder said.

In the finals, it was two Eau Claire teams competing against each other.

“You could obviously say that the future looks bright for men’s tennis,” senior Adam Arians said. “But these four guys are showing that they can do some damage this year.”

Coach Tom Gillman also was impressed with the freshmen players’ performance at the tournament.

“We’re definitely deeper from top to bottom,” he said. “More so than we have been in previous years.”

Although the freshmen won their tournament, the team still is looking to improve.

“We’ll practice for a couple more weeks, focusing more on drills and really working to improve weaknesses in our games,” Widder said. “We’ll also really start focusing on conditioning and weight lifting.”

The team has high aspirations for the season, including winning the WIAC conference championship, Arians said.

“I think that we are the team to beat in our conference,” Arians said. “One of our goals is to win conference, and I think that this will be the most successful men’s tennis season in a long time.”