The Ball State University men's tennis team is two games away from winning the Mid-American Conference championship.
With a 6-1 win against the University of Buffalo on Friday and a 4-3 victory against the University of Toledo on Sunday, Ball State controls its own destiny for the conference championship.
The Toledo match took more than four-and-a-half hours to complete as sophomore Eduardo Pavia's No. 1 singles match alone took three-and-a-half hours to finish. All of the attention was on Pavia's third set as all of the other matches had finished with a 3-3 tie. Pavia won the match 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 for the Cardinals victory.
"Incredibly long match," coach Bill Richards said. "One of the longest I've been involved with. Got to give Pavia a lot of credit to come through. There's no greater pressure than that situation and he really came through for us big time."
Senior Jorge Rodriguez had 6-2, 3-6, 7-5 victory at No. 5 singles. Senior Jose Perdomo won his singles match in straight sets.
Prior to this match, four of Ball State's losses came in contests with scores of 5-2 or 4-3.
"In both the Buffalo and Toledo matches we came through in situations where we didn't come through at the beginning of the season." Richards said. "We're happy to come up with two wins." In doubles Ball State experimented with the line-up.
Perdomo teamed up with freshman Zane Smith won at No. 1 doubles. It was the first time the duo played together at the No. 1 spot. At No. 3 doubles Rodriguez teamed up with freshman Derek Carpenter for one of the first times this season. They won their match 9-7 giving Ball State the point.
"I'm pleased that our changes we made in doubles worked," Richards said. "In a 4-3 match it ended up being a big point."
The changes made in doubles resulted from the Buffalo match where Ball State lost the doubles point, Richards said.
The Cardinals won all six singles matches against Buffalo.
Senior Jose Perdomo won his No. 1 singles match against Marcelo Mazzetto 6-4, 4-6, 6-1. It was the only match to go three sets as the Cardinals swept the Bulls in the other five. Pavia won the closest match of the five with a second set tie-breaker.
Buffalo dropped to 7-9 and has lost three of its four conference matches.
Toledo had the best record of any team in the MAC at 15-8 going into the match. It is the first win Ball State has against a team with a winning record this season.
Ball State is 11-8 on the season and 3-0 in conference play. This sets up a showdown on Friday when preseason conference favorite Western Michigan University comes to Muncie.
"We wanted to go into the Western Michigan match undefeated, and fortunately we did that," Richards said.
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