Singles Dominate as Lobos Win Eighth Straight
GREELEY, Colo. — No doubles point? No problem. UNM didn’t win a doubles point for the first time in eight matches, but UNM’s singles play dominiated the Northern Colorado Bears, as UNM won four matches and had the lead in two others as New Mexico won its eighth straight match with a 4-1 win over UNC. The Lobos top four singles players all picked up wins.
New Mexico improved to 12-6 overall in winning its eighth straight. After a 1-5 start to the season, the Lobos have won 11 of their last 12 games. Northern Colorado, which had picked up a comeback 4-3 win earlier in the day, dropped to 11-11.
UNM entered the its match with Northern Colorado by having won the doubles point in its previous seven games, all wins, but that didn’t happen on Thursday. UNM did get the first doubles win from the usual source. Dominic West and Facundo Bermejo teamed up at No. 2 doubles to win 6-0, the duo’s 11th consecutive doubles win. However, UNM couldn’t clinch the point. Ricky Hernandez Tong and Stepan Holis fell at No. 1 by a 6-3 score, and that left everything to No. 3 doubles. For UNM, that out the point on Tim Buttner and Nicolas Prieto, who played well but lost in a tiebreaker 7-6 (7-3).
The put UNM in the odd position of trailing entering doubles, but in the end it didn’t matter in the least bit. UNM has been getting results from UNM’s top three players, with the triumvirate of Hernandez Tong, West and Holis have gone 23-4 over the last 10 matches. Northern Colorado had no answer for those three. Holis was the first to finish, winning his 20th of the season with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Julian Kenzlers. West played at No. 2 and won his third straight, winning 6-3, 6-1 over Adolfo Arroyo. That made it 2-0.
Bermejo picked up UNM’s third point, making it 3-1. Making his debut at No. 4 after playing for most of the season at No. 5, won 6-3, 7-6 (7-3). That put UNM one more singles win away, and it was more of a question of which Lobo would finish first. It turned out to be the two-time reigning Mountain West Player of the Week in Rocky Hernandez Tong. Hernandez Tong came up big in his opening set with a 10-8 win in a tiebreaker before losing the second set 6-3. While that was going on, with the matches at No. 2 and No. 3, the other two singles matches started, with Tim Buttner playing at No. 5 and winning his first set 6-4 over Alex Exsted. Even better, Prieto at No. 6 won his opening set 6-0 over Michael Kritzinger.
However, Hernandez Tong took his third set easily, winning 6-2, taking the match 4-1. That match was his 21st win of the season, matching West for the team lead. UNM now gets a day off before traveling down to Colorado Springs for a 1 p.m. match on Saturday against the Falcons.
NOTES: The match was only the second between the two schools, with UNM improving to 2-0 … Hernandez Tong’s win was the 81st of his career, tying him with Samir Iftikhar, David Kowalski and Ryan Stotland for eighth on the all-time UNM singles wins list … UNM’s eight-game winning streak is its longest since winning nine straight during the 2016 season.