Last season, the UW-Eau Claire men’s tennis team didn’t start on a high note, and that was felt for quite a while, sophomore Phil Loprinzi said. This season, however, began a little differently.
“We did pretty great over the weekend and we really came together,” Loprinzi said. “We figured out what we need to do with our lineup more for the future . It felt a lot better to start off this way than we started off last year, and it’s good we started off in the right direction.”
Competing in its first dual meet of the season, the UW-Eau Claire men’s tennis team won 9-0 over Northwestern College (Minn.) at the Ade Olson indoor tennis courts on Thursday.
“It was really nice to win as a team,” said freshman Lars Olson, who won his number fives singles match by defeating his opponent 6-0, 6-1.
The Blugolds easily won all of their singles matches in straight sets. The closest match was the number six singles where senior Brett Gressick won by allowing only six points. Gressick ended up winning 6-2, 6-4. In doubles play, all Eau Claire teams took victories, winning 8-1 over their opponents.
In three dual meets this weekend, the team took two and dropped one to Div. II opponent St. Cloud State in St. Cloud, Minn.
On Friday the Blugolds first took on St. Cloud State and lost 6-3. They then got back on track later in the evening, winning 7-2 over Concordia-Moorhead. Saturday morning, the Blugolds were back in action, taking on St. Scholastica, where they defeated the Saints 8-1.
“It was really nice to be able to win over the weekend, and to come back and win after losing on Friday,” Olson said.
Eau Claire improves to 3-1 on the season. In doubles play, both the No.1 team of Loprinzi and junior Steve Lantz and the No. 3 team of senior C.J. Rose and freshman Eric Wollum won two out of three matches, falling only to St. Cloud State. Loprinzi and Lantz won 8-4 on Friday night and 8-2 on Saturday. Rose and Wollum won 8-6 on Friday and 8-2 on Saturday.
In singles, Olson and senior Erik Brandner were the only Blugolds to go home with three victories over the weekend at number five and number four, respectively. Olson was able to defeat St. Cloud’s Kevin Bauleke 3-6, 6-3, 10-7 and did not give up a point to his Concordia-Moorhead opponent, winning in straight sets, 6-0, 6-0 on Friday. On Saturday, Olson beat his St. Scholastica’s opponent in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4. Brandner won on Friday 6-3, 6-4 against his St. Cloud opponent and 6-2, 6-1 against his Concordia opponent. On Saturday he allowed only three points, winning 6-0, 6-3.
The men’s tennis team will be back at home next weekend, hosting Ripon College and Macalester College (Minn.) on Sunday. The Blugolds will take on Ripon at 8:30 a.m. and Macalester at 4 p.m. The team does hope to improve in some areas before the matches take place, Loprinzi said.
“We need to work on our doubles a little bit before (the matches),” Loprinzi said. “But we also need to work on continuing to be successful and working to improve the little things.”
