Ray Leonard was relegated to running the team’s Twitter page as he sat on the sidelines and watched his team battle IUPUI on Sunday afternoon. Leonard injured his back against Indiana the weekend prior and missed both matches the Cardinals played this weekend due to soreness.
Inopportunely, he isn’t the only Cardinal out due to injury. Senior Cliff Morrison has been out since the Cardinals defeated the University of Detroit Mercy on Jan. 25. Morrison, a regular singles player, played only doubles in that match.
Without Leonard and Morrison, the Cardinals were able to split their weekend series with Brown and IUPUI despite only having six healthy players.
“You take your top two guys out and everybody’s moving up,” Ball State head coach Bill Richards said.
Fellow seniors Dalton Albertin and Alexandre Brym moved up to play the No. 1 and No. 2 singles matches this weekend, going 3-1.
“Dalton’s played a lot at No. 1 throughout his career, so I had a lot of confidence in him this weekend at that position,” Richards said. “Brym’s played a lot in the middle of the lineup as a senior, so he slides up to two and does a really good job.”
Brym tweaked his knee early on against IUPUI, causing a scare, but was able to finish the match off.
Getting and staying healthy is the top priority for Richards and the Cardinals. They have more than a week off before hosting two doubleheaders in four days.
“We don’t play this next weekend, so we’ll take a couple of days off and try to get those guys that are banged up healthy,” Richards said. “Kind of clear our heads a little bit, take advantage of a weekend that we don’t play.”
Richards said that the team would get back into regular practice mode later on in the week.
The Cardinals will definitely need to be full strength when they face off against Michigan State in two weeks, the fourth Big Ten opponent they’ve played this season.
“We hope both [Leonard] and Cliff will play against Michigan State in a couple weeks,” Richards said. “I haven’t talked to the trainers within the last day or two as far as their recoveries, but that’s our plan.”
