Lobos Hand USU 4-1 Loss, Will Play for Title Saturday

LOGAN, Utah — One down, one to go.

The New Mexico Lobos handed Utah State its first home loss in well over a year, and ended the Aggies’ 12-match winning streak at home as Aram Noroozian bounced back with a three-set win to clinch a 4-1 victory for the Lobos, setting up a winning take all showdown in Boise on Saturday for the Mountain West regular season title.

Boise State can claim a share of the title no matter what with a Friday night win over Air Force, but regardless of that result, the winner of the Saturday morning match between UNM and BSU will be the No. 1 seed in the 20025 Credit Union 1 Mountain West Tournament next week.  New Mexico has won the title in 2019, 2021 and 2023.

The Lobos swept doubles for a 1-0 lead with Aram Noroozian and Georgio Samaha winning at No. 1 and Daniil Kakhniuk and Nicolas Recoura winning at No. 2, with both wins coming by a 6-3 score.  That gave UNM a 1-0 lead in the match as it went to singles, with just four courts in the Logan Sports Academy & Racquet Club as the match was played indoors.

There, UNM got out to a hot start as Georgio Samaha won his 82nd career singles match 6-4, 6-4 over Roman Venger to make it 2-0.  UNM split the next two with Aditya Balsekar losing 6-2, 7-5 but Dario Ciobotaru winning his 20th of the season, taking a 6-4, 6-4 win over David Martirosian to make it 3-1.

That left it to Noroozian with the other two matches in the early stages.  Aram lost the first set 6-2, but bounced back with a 6-4 win, and then got a break of serve to go up 5-3, but allowed Sergi Mico Fenollar to break him back, putting the match back on serve at 5-4.  However, Noroozian took advantage of a foul tip for a point, and on deuce, he methodically sent Fenollar side-to-side, and when he rushed the net, Fenollar tried to go cross court and put it in the net, giving UNM the win and putting the Lobos into the winner-take-all showdown on Saturday.