Lobos Fall Short of Title in 4-3 Loss to No. 42 BSU

BOISE, Idaho — In a match that was every bit fitting of the two best teams in the Mountain West, playing at home might have been the edge Boise State needed to nip New Mexico 4-3, winning the deciding match on two tiebreakers to take the outright Mountain West regular season title.

Now, UNM will look to win their way back into a potential rematch in the Mountain West Championship match on Friday, a date that would have a berth in the NCAA Tournament attached.  First, UNM as the No. 2 seed, will take on No. 7 UNLV on Wednesday at 6 pm in the Mountain West quarterfinals.

The match ended up hinging on the battle at No. 1, and BSU’s Jett middleton edged out Aram Noroozian in straight sets, with both going to tiebreakers.  In the first, Noroozian fended off set points at 6-5, 7-6, and 8-7 before losing 10-8. That came after Noroozian twice had break points up 6-5 for the opening set but couldn’t convert.  In the second set it was Middleton who had a pair of set points on breaks at 5-2 and then one serving at 5-3, and each time Noroozian served them and pushed on.  Again, they went to a tiebreak, but after each player served a point, Middleton hit a cross-court winner to take a 2-1 lead, and he won the next five points for a 7-1 tiebreak win for the outright title.

UNM did get singles wins from Avery Tallakson, winning 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 over Jon Chin and from Georgio Samaha, a 6-1, 3-6, 6-2 winner over James Van Herzeele, but Boise State won two other three-set matches as four of the six went the distance.  UNM swept doubles for the opening point.

NOTES: Samaha tied Ricky Hernandez-Tong for the eighth-most singles wins in Lobo history with 83, and he is now 22nd in doubles wins with 62 … Samaha won his 19th and Tallakson his team-leading 22nd.