The Utah men’s tennis team opened its Pac-12 conference play last weekend. The Utes traveled to California and had matches with a couple of top teams in the Golden State, where they struggled all weekend to really get anything going.
Utah faced No. 43 Stanford and No. 30 California on March 27 and 28, and going into those teams’ home courts was anything but an easy undertaking.
Stanford, in particular, has won 17 championships — the most of any school. These historic environments proved tough for the very young tennis team to begin their conference play.
“As always, Stanford is a difficult opponent, and it is a difficult place to play,” assistant tennis coach Daniel Pollock said.
That didn’t change at all last weekend as the Utes fell to the Cardinal in its Pac-12 opener 6-1.
“Because we’re a very young team I think a lot of the newer players were blown away by everything like the courts and the facilities,” senior Cedric Willems said.
This match proved to be a difficult one for the Utes. They were defeated in straight sets in nearly all matchups, though there was a bright success story in the match.
Junior Matt Cowley provided the lone point for the Utes in the match.
After dropping the first set, Cowley battled back to win the second and third sets, 6-2 and 7-6(5).
“Matt fought really hard even though the match had already been decided,” Pollock said.
Cowley’s comeback victory was a good sign for the junior, who the coaches have been trying to get to overcome early obstacles.
“We’ve worked on that a lot with Matt,” Pollock said. “He’s had a couple of tough losses where he hasn’t been able to come back from being down.”
After a difficult first opponent, things didn’t get much easier for the Utes as they took on the California Golden Bears the next day.
Utah was swept by Cal, 7-0, and the Utes will be looking to forget this one quickly.
“You just have to have a short memory in sports, which is especially important for the younger players,” Pollock said.
The youth on the team are making important strides to improve their games even though they may have had a tough start to their collegiate careers.
“All the guys have really fought hard and that’s all you can ask for,” Willems said.
Pollock also expressed the same thing as the senior leader of the team.
“They are doing everything we’ve asked of them,” Pollock said. “They were out there battling for every single point.”
Utah will continue its Pac-12 play this weekend against another pair of ranked opponents. The Utes will face No. 7 USC on Friday and then No. 15 UCLA on Saturday. Both matches will be in Los Angeles, Calif.
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