Box Score: UNLV
Box Score: Montana
LAS VEGAS, NV—The University of New Mexico men’s team took on conference opponent University of Las Vegas today followed by a match with Montana. The Lobos fell a tough 4-1 to UNLV, but bounced back to defeat Montana 6-1.
In their first match against UNLV, the Lobos lost a close doubles point when they fell at the number one and two positions. Rodolfo Jauregui and Augustus Ge played the role of number, but fell to UNLV 6-3. Bart Van Leijsen and Michael Tran met the same fate at the number two position.
Ricky Hernandez-Tong and Jorge Escutia teamed up at the number three position and were leading Alexandr Cozbinow and Richard Solberg 5-4 before their match was left unfinished.
In singles play, Sean Baklini took on Solberg at the number position, but was first to fall when he lost 6-1, 6-2.
Ge clinched the only point New Mexico would score when he topped Adam Gage-Brown a quick 6-1, 6-2. He competed at the number four position.
Van Leijsen took on Jakob Amilon at the number one position, but fell 6-4, 6-4. To clinch the match, Cozbinov defeated Escutia in a hard fought battle. He fell 6-3, 6-4.
Hernandez-Tong’s match at the number three position and Jauregui’s at the number five spot were left unfinished. In both of these matches, UNM led UNLV.
Usual number one competitor, Hayden Sabatka, did not compete today due to a knee injury.
“Not a great performance today,” said head coach Bart Scott. “Typically we pride ourselves on finding solutions and today, for a multitude of reasons, we simply were not able to problem solve. Congratulations to UNLV; they played a better match start to finish and deserved the win more than we did. We have to bounce back and look to solve problems better later this afternoon against Montana.”
In that match, the Lobos started off strong by clinching the doubles point. Escutia and Hernandez-Tong defeated Montana 6-3 at the number three position. The doubles point came down to the match at the number two position after Ge and Jauregui fell at the number one spot. Van Leijsen and Tran won in an exciting 7-6 match to put the Lobos on the board.
In singles play, Escutia made quick work of his opponent at the number two spot when he won 6-2, 6-4. Shortly after, Tran won 6-2, 6-3 at the number six position. To clinch the match win for the Lobos, Van Leijsen topped Semion Branzburg 7-5, 6-4. He competed at the number one position.
The rest of the matches played out. Hernandez-Tong won 4-6, 6-3, 10-4 at the number three positon and teammate Ge won 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 at the number four spot.
Montana got a point on the board when Jauregui fell at the number five position 6-4, 4-6, 8-10.
“Good bounce back win against a game Montana team,” Scott said. “We have learned a valuable lesson today and we will work tirelessly to improve on it the rest of the season. We have another big challenge next week with Utah State and Boise State coming to town. We can’t let this derail us from our goals. Our league is tough, there are no easy outs. This is why we play college tennis, for this part of the season. We are excited for the challenges to come.”
New Mexico advances to 13-11 in the season and they look forward to another conference opponent, Utah, on April 1st.