The Ball State men’s tennis team bounced back from a loss on Friday to sweep visiting IUPUI 7-0 Sunday afternoon at the Muncie YMCA Tennis Center.
With the win, the Cardinals improved to 4-4 on the season. The Jaguars dropped to 1-9.
Despite the lack of wins, coach Bill Richards wasn’t overlooking the Jaguars.
“We had a lot of respect for IUPUI; they hadn’t won a lot of matches this year because they’ve played a very difficult schedule,” Richards said. “We knew they competed extremely well and we knew we’d have to be ready, we certainly couldn’t take them lightly.”
The Cardinals jumped out to an early 1-0 lead after winning the No. 1 and No. 3 doubles matches.
The No. 3 doubles match was the first to finish as Austin Smith and Austin Sansone made easy work of their opponents, breaking them three times in route to an 8-3 victory. Dalton Albertin and Patrick Elliot earned the point for Ball State by defeating Jacob Bradley and Nick Volz 8-6. The pair broke the Jaguars in the first game of the match before holding serve the rest of the way.
The momentum gained in doubles play led straight into singles action where the Cardinals took all six matches.
At No. 1 singles, Albertin defeated IUPUI’s Jason Jaruvang 7-5, 7-6 (7-3). Albertin got a key break late in the first set which turned the match in his favor. After getting broken early in the second set, Albertin kept up his aggressive play and broke back to force a tiebreak, which he won 7-3.
Alex Brym was able to fight off an early break and a lengthy visit from the trainer to defeat Volz 7-6 (8-6), 7-5 at the No. 2 position. Brym called the trainer in the second game of the first set to take a look at his knee but was able to finish out the match.
In the closest match of the day, Elliot defeated Deon Shafer 1-6, 7-6 (7-5), 13-11 at the No. 3 spot.
Ball State was once again without two of its top players as Ray Leonard and Cliff Morrison continue to battle injuries.
“With a couple guys out like we had, I couldn’t be more pleased with how our guys responded,” Richard said. “Considering the circumstances, it was a pretty convincing win for us today.”
