A five-match win streak proved to be just one short for a pair of junior men’s tennis players who were one match away from reaching the Indoor Intercollegiate Championships.
Ball State men’s tennis doubles team of Lucas Andersen and Andrew Stutz made it to the title match of the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Ohio Valley Regional Oct. 19 before losing to Indiana.
Stutz and Andersen knocked off duos from Texas Tech (8-2), Morehead State (8-3), Vanderbilt (8-5), Xavier (8-5) and tournament host school Tennessee (7-5, 1-6, 10-4) before dropping the championship in two sets.
“It’s a tremendous accomplishment to finish second out of the 64 teams in the tournament,” head coach Bill Richards said. “[Stutz] and [Andersen] took advantage of the opportunity and ended up having a great tournament for themselves.”
The Hoosier pair of Sam Monette and Daniel Bednarczyk dominated their competition on the way to the championship. They then made quick work of Ball State in two sets (6-1, 6-2) in a best-of-three series.
Monette also went on to go undefeated in the singles tournament as well, wrapping up each of his six matches in two sets. He will be traveling to New York in November as both an individual and a pair.
If the Cardinal pair were able to knock off Indiana, they would have secured a spot in the ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships in New York.
Coach Richards is pleased with the newly-formed duo’s success, even with the final loss. But he understands how close they came to qualifying for nationals.
“You know, it’s still a little bittersweet when you had a chance to take it one step further and take it into that national indoor tournament,” he said.
The two have just recently begun playing with each other. They weren’t teammates last year, and prior to the ITA regionals, they played in just two previous invites as a couple this fall.
Stutz and Andersen were not expected to be this successful going into the tournament, but the dynamic duo blossomed over the five-day tournament. Ball State participates in the regionals every year, but their run was something the Cardinals have not been able to accomplish at an ITA regional competition recently.
“I think it was definitely a surprise — one of those pleasant surprises that you really enjoy,” Richards said. “We haven’t been able to make a run like this for a good number of years.”
The 2015 ITA Division-1 men’s regionals were hosted by 12 different college campuses across the nation. The Ohio Valley Regional was hosted by the University of Tennessee and featured strong competition from conferences like the Big Ten, Southeastern Conference and Big West, among others.
The stiff competition will help Ball State as it moves on with its fall schedule. The ITA regionals impact the team’s overall regional rankings, despite being an individual-based competition.
“Everything in the fall is individual, but we talk all the time as a team about [how] in every match you play, you’re representing Ball State and our program, and every result you have impacts completely on the program,” Richards said.
Men’s tennis is a spring sport, but this fall performance will be known across the Mid-American Conference.
While the team will not play another MAC school until the middle of March, Richards believes the rest of the conference has already taken notice.
“In the MAC, everyone is watching each other and looking at how everyone’s doing,” Richards said.
This will be something to note as the MAC will prepare for the conference’s indoor individual championship hosted by Western Michigan on Halloween weekend.
The next time the Cardinals will be in action is Oct. 23 at the Black and Gold Invitational in West Lafayette.
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