Ball State's men's tennis team clenched a share of its seventeenth Mid-American Conference title Saturday.
After the match against No. 65 Western Michigan (18-4, 3-1), head coach Bill Richards said every day at practice the team looks at the conference championship banner. The red and white banner reveals no regular season title in 2002. He said the team's goal for the year was to put a 2003 on the banner, and his team responded with a 4-3 victory over the Broncos.
A win against Northern Illinois on Saturday would give the Cardinals the conference championship outright.
Ball State (14-7, 4-0) attacked Western Michigan from the start on Saturday, winning two of the three doubles matches.
Senior Chris Varga and freshman Patrick Thompson paired to win 8-2 in the No. 2 spot.
In No. 1 doubles senior Kevin Burnett and freshman Matt Baccarani won 8-5. A critical point in the match came with Burnett and Baccarani in front 3-2 and Western Michigan serving. A Broncos double fault and a drop shot by Burnett put the Cardinals ahead 4-2. The Broncos never threatened after that.
Richards said his team knew how important the doubles point would be going into the match. Wednesday a loss in the doubles point resulted in a 4-3 loss at No. 60 Notre Dame.
After securing the doubles point, Ball State got a pair of two set victories from sophomore Matt Laramore and Burnett. Laramore beat Jose Orozco 6-1, 6-4. Entering Saturday's match, Orozco's singles record was 20-1.
"Matt has had a tough year, but he is always out there digging and fighting and trying," Richards said. "He hasn't always played his best tennis, but he has won some big matches for us during his career."
Richards added that the win by Laramore had a large effect on the course of the match.
"I think that when he was the first one off the court with a decisive win, that knocked (the Broncos) back on their heels a little bit and took some confidence out of them," he said.
Burnett won his match against Tommy Dennis 7-5, 6-2. The other senior, Chris Varga, finished off the match with a 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 victory over Ravi Pathanjali. Richards said both seniors led the team to the victory on Saturday.
"Burnett and Varga had 'I won't be denied' attitudes yesterday," he said. "They're seniors. They wanted the championship. Those guys have been solid all year in both singles and doubles. Seniors are always huge on any team, and those two guys have been outstanding for us this year."
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