Lyssa Beyer

With only three games left in its season, tennis Coach Tom Gillman said nothing is going to change the fact that the mens tennis team has had a very successful season.

On Friday the men’s tennis team kicked off its four match weekend against Augustana College (Ill.). Freshman Lars Olson said it was its toughest match of the weekend, but that the 6-3 victory helped the Blugolds prepare for this upcoming weekend to end their season “on a high note.”

During this meet, the team only won two matches of singles in straight sets, which belonged to sophomore Phil Loprinzi and senior Erik Brandner, who ended at No. 3 and No. 5, respectively.

“I think we played really well together,” Loprinzi said. “We came really well together as a team.”

The other matches were decided with a third set. Junior Steve Lantz came in at No. 1, as he recuperated from his 1-6 first set, pulling together the next two sets with 6-4 and 6-2.

Olson and sophomore Kevin Fawcett were the only Blugolds to win in doubles. They ended at No. 2 with an 8-5 victory.

“(The) Augustana match was a tough match but everyone played really well,” Fawcett said.

On Saturday half of the team faced St. Ambrose (Ill.) while the remainder of the team played against Milwaukee School of Engineering and Concordia at Mequon.

On their first meet of the day the Blugolds defeated St. Ambrose 8-1, as they only lost one singles match, which Fawcett ended in a third set, 7-5, 1-6, 10-4. Olson did not let St. Ambrose win one game, finishing at No.1 with a 6-0, 6-0 victory.

At Mequon the team defeated the Milwaukee School of Engineering 9-0, winning all its matches in straight sets. Later on the Blugolds also won all their matches in straight sets, which earned them another 9-0 victory later on that day.

“I thought we played a lot more consistently in singles,” Gillman said. “We competed really well, we kept our emotions under control and I was very proud of that.”

The Blugolds now have a 23-3 overall record and this weekend the men will head to Oshkosh, where they’ll end their regular season.

“We are going to use this momentum to propel us this coming weekend.” Loprinzi said.

On Friday the Blugolds will face La Crosse and Saturday they have a double meet against Oshkosh and Whitewater.

Gillman said the team is headed in the right direction and

it doesn’t need to do a lot of major changes.

“I think its just a matter of having a good week of practice,” Gillman said. “Reminding the players, reminding ourselves what we need to do and what our goals are and I think (this weekend) really helped us. We want to keep it fun. I think that’s the biggest thing for this coming weekend . I think if we come with that mind set we’ll be fine, we don’t need to try too hard or anything, just have a good time and play within ourselves.”