Bringing their winning streak to 11 games, Utah conquered the No. 59 Boise State Broncos — something the team hasn’t done since 2009 — and also took down No. 71 South Alabama.
Utah began the weekend’s action on Friday night against the Broncos. After a slow start in doubles play, the Utes were down 1-0, and their undefeated season was on the line.
The Utah duo of Egbert Weverink and Santiago Sierra gave the Utes an early lead in doubles with a 6-3 win over the Broncos in the No. 2 spot, but after that, the freshmen tandem of Dan Little and David Micevski was defeated 6-3 and Utah’s Matt Cowley and Jamey Swiggart were edged out 6-4.
The Utes battled back in singles play, as sophomore Weverink tied the match 1-1 after defeating BSU’s Abe Hewko 6-1, 6-3. Little narrowly lost to Boise State’s Brian Foley 6-3, 6-4, and the Broncos took a one-point lead again.
On other courts, Utah was making up ground, and Micevski and Cowley defeated their opponents in two sets, giving the team a 3-2 lead. Then Swiggart battled to win his first set 7-6 and forged ahead in the second to win 6-3, giving the Utes their fourth overall point, securing the win.
Utah’s Sierra was locked in a fierce match and won the first set in a close 6-4 decision. He dropped the second set 2-6 but bounced back to win the final set of the match 6-4 and the Utes came out with a 5-2 victory.
With the hard-fought victory over Boise State under their belt, the Utes resumed play Saturday afternoon against South Alabama.
In doubles, the Utes appeared to have shaken off their slow start from the day before and came out firing. Weverink and Sierra were the first pair of Utes to win the doubles set, quickly dispatching their Jaguar opponents 6-3.
Despite the Utes’ fast start, South Alabama was matching Utah’s intensity on the other courts. Eventually, Utah’s Cowley and Swiggart came out on top and won the match 7-6, giving the Utes a 1-0 lead heading into singles play.
The Utes kept the momentum going in the opening sets of singles. Cowley, Micevski and Sierra all won their first sets 6-1. Swiggart also performed well, winning his first set 6-3, while Little emerged victorious from a back-and-forth first set battle 6-4.
The Jaguars would not go down without a fight and after South Alabama’s Juan Troglia came back to defeat Weverink 6-4 in the first set, the second sets of singles were much closer.
Cowley won 6-4 in the second set and increased the team’s lead to 2-0. Micevski was the next to secure a point for the Utes after defeating his opponent 6-2. Sierra won a contentious 7-5 set to put the Utes up 4-0 and give the team its 11th straight win.
Little and Swiggart also emerged victorious in close second sets, winning 6-4 and 7-5, respectively. Weverink was edged out 7-6 in a tiebreaker second set, rounding out the final score of the match 6-1 in favor of the Utes.
Head coach Roeland Brateanu was happy to see the team’s late effort against Boise State transfer over to the next day.
“I thought we started yesterday off in doubles a little slow, a little nervous, but we recovered well in singles,” Brateanu said. “Got a little confident and played much better doubles today and carried it over into singles.”
One of the team’s senior leaders, Jamey Swiggart, was proud of the team’s performance over the weekend and defeating a pair of ranked opponents is definitely a confidence-boost for the entire squad.
“Today was a really good win,” Swiggart said. “I think we all came out, especially after beating Boise State in that tough match. It would have been easy to let down today, but we all pulled together and fought our butts off today.”
The Utes will return to the Eccles Tennis Center this Saturday at 2 p.m. to face in-state rival BYU.
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