Utah Men’s Tennis hosted the visiting Stanford Cardinal on Easter Sunday for the second game in the second game of the Utes opening weekend to Pac 12 play. After falling to the California Golden Bears 4-3 on last Friday, the Utes were eager to regroup and compete with the 43rd ranked Stanford. After a close round of doubles, Stanford gained traction and separated itself from Utah in the singles round. In the end Stanford came away with the Victory, 4-2.
In the opening round of doubles play Utah fans looked on at the sunny courts of the Eccles Tennis Center on a chilly, Easter Sunday as the two teams battled to gain ground on the other. In Match One, Senior and Freshman doubles-mates Matt Cowley and Dan Little controlled their matchup against the visiting Tom Fawcett and Maciek Romanowicz, 6-3. Little, in his first year of collegiate tennis spoke fondly of his senior partner Cowley, who boasts a .457 career doubles winning percentage.
“It’s great,” Little said of his partnership with Cowley. “He compliments me and I complement him, I feel like. We work well together, he’s got so much experience, he’s great to play with.”
While Little and Cowley took care of business in their matchup, Stanford came out on top in doubles match three, with Yale Goldberg and Sameer Kumar defeating Jamey Swiggart and Johan Jonhagen 6-2. Utah and Stanford were neck and neck with a math a piece through the doubles round as the sophomore pairing of Freddie McGeehan and Egbert Weverink dualed it out with the Stanford powerhouse duo of Nolan Paige and David Wilczynski. Both teams battled set for set until it came down to a tie breaker in which Paige sent the ball screaming across the top of the net, scraping the far reach of the court before either Ute could save it–advantage Stanford.
Following the close fought doubles round, both teams broke into their respective singles matchups and that’s where the Cardinal gained separation from Utah, beating the Utes handily in most of their respective matchups. After Little defeated Kumar witht the second singles match to finish, both teams were tied at one match a piece. Stanford would close out the third match, and Utah would follow evening up the score again, 2-2, but in the final match to finish Nolan Paige defeated Weverink 7-5 in their final set to seal the victory for the Tree.
After a disappointing opening weekend to Pac 12 play, dropping both home games to Cal and Stanford respectively, Utah will travel to the Pacific Northwest where they will face Washington and Oregon next weekend. While the loss is bitter, the Utes are proud of the way they competed against two highly ranked teams this weekend.
“[We] showed a lot of heart,” Cowley said. “To see that we are at this level… Its just a matter of finishing a few points here and there.
“Its really good that we are in these matches,” added Little. “We were so close Friday, we were close again today. That’s the frustrating part of it is that we haven’t gotten a win but we have been close.”
The Utes will face the Huskies in Seattle this Friday at 6pm MST.