FULL RESULTS
CHENEY, Wash. – The Eastern Washington University men's tennis team lost to Northern Colorado today (Feb. 17) in a tough-fought match, 3-4. The Eagles have a 4-3 mark overall and are 0-1 in conference.
"Sometimes in a match you think about what you might say to the guys when they win because you see them coming back or pushing through adversity," said head coach Steve Clark. "The speech is often different after a loss or after a win, but for me the speech carries similar components. This is why I do not always believe the old saying 'you learn more from your losses' – I don't think so. You learn just the same it just hurts a heck of a lot more. But one of the things that separates great players is they do bounce back and work on things they need to work on."
Scott Paz and Flavien Raveau opened up doubles play with a solid win 7-6 with a 5 point tiebreaker. Victor Pereira and Jeremy Field followed with a close match but couldn't get the win (4-6), as well as Ricardo Almeida and Martin Bats who lost 3-6 to give Northern Colorado the doubles point.
"Paz was a two-time winner in the match and he is undefeated in dual matches, except for our match against UW. Bats is doing a great job as a freshman coming back from a lopsided first set," said Clark. "The high-altitude is hard to get adjusted to but no excuses and he came back and finished the guy off. And Field did a great job regaining leads and defeating what I thought was one of their stronger players at No. 3."
Each team won three matches in singles play to put the overall score at 3-4. Paz opened up play in the No. 1 spot with an Eagle victory (6-1, 6-4). Raveau went to three-sets but eventually fell short (6-1, 4-6, 4-6), only to have Field in the No. 3 spot come back to win in two sets (6-3, 6-4). Northern Colorado came away with the No. 4 point when Jeremy Mueller fell (1-6, 3-6). Bats took the win in three long sets (2-6, 7-5, 6-1) and Almeida also went to three sets but fell short (7-6, 2-6, 5-7).
"For the team this was a difficult loss on several fronts," said Clark. "But bottom line we just did not execute under pressure. Tennis is a pressure sport and you have to be able to execute. It doesn't even have to be pretty, it doesn't even have to be perfect, it just has to be in. Every guy competed hard but we just have to get better at things and it starts every day and practice as usual – Just have to get back at it."
The squad plays North Dakota on Monday (Feb. 19) for their second conference match. For more information on Eastern Washington's men's tennis team, follow @EWUAthletics on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
