Men’s Tennis loses to IUPUI

Friday, April 8

Sioux Falls, S.D.

Noon

South Dakota State University

IUPUI

Junior Jonny Higham

Photo by: Jason Salzman

4/8/2016 4:14:00 PM | Men's Tennis

Jackrabbits fall 5-2

SIOUX FALLS, S.D.—Despite taking a 2-0 lead in the match, the South Dakota State men's tennis team dropped a 5-2 match to IUPUI Friday afternoon at the Huether Family Match Pointe Tennis Center.

With the loss, the Jackrabbits fall to 11-10 overall and 1-3 in The Summit League while the Jaguars improve to 8-18 and 3-0.
"Everything we did well in doubles today we were not able to execute in singles. IUPUI is a team that loves to bring energy and try to rattle their opponent and we knew that coming in," sixth-year head coach Michael Engdahl said. "We handled their adversity really well in doubles, but let them get under our skin in singles for no reason at all. We really need to have a gut check moment over the next week and determine the type of competitors we want to be.

"If we compete with the focus and confidence we know we have, we still have the opportunity to end the season on a very high note. We just cannot afford to beat ourselves moving forward. We have a great group of guys and I know they will bounce back and compete the way Jackrabbit tennis is known to compete," Engdahl added.

SDSU swept the double matches to take a 1-0 lead in the match. Senior Mateus Moreira and freshman Emerson Styles won 6-3 at No. 1. Junior Jonny Higham and sophomore Marco Paulo Castro won 6-2 at No. 2 and junior Lucas Pereira and freshman Chuck Tang won 6-3.

The Jackrabbits took a 2-0 lead when Moreira won 6-0, 6-4 to run his record No. 3 singles record to 2-0.

SDSU dropped the remaining five singles matches.

The Jacks return to action April 22 when they play at Creighton in a nonconference match at 12:30 p.m.