Allison Fajt – Staff Writer
The Gustavus Men’s Tennis team started their season off right with a MIAC win against St. Olaf and a win against Bethany Lutheran. As well as experiencing some good competition against the University of North Dakota, the Gusties also defeated both the Oles and the Vikings 9-0 yet lost 1-6 against the Fighting Hawks. The team had to split up to compete against the three different teams: a third traveled to North Dakota, and a third went to St. Olaf, while the others stayed home to play Bethany Lutheran.
“The matches were all important in different ways, UND they’re a D1 school so that’s always like a fun test to see where we are. St. Olaf was important too because they are a conference team,” Junior Justin Sehlin said.
At home the team swept the Vikings off our courts winning 6-0 in singles and 3-0 in doubles.
“I think we did a good job. I mean we won all the matches there. There were a couple of spots where they pushed us early, I know Joel had a close match in the first set and then kinda figured it out while he was down early. But I think we just did a good job of playing tennis our way,” Sehlin said.
“We did a good job… there were a couple of spots where they pushed us… but we just did a good job of playing tennis our way.”
In the singles round, Senior Joel Hug won 7-5, 6-1 at no. 1 singles. Then Sehlin 6-0, 6-2 Junior Sean Bochman 6-3, 6-0 Junior Federico Fiorda. Finally, Senior Luke Haddorf and Sophomore Geoffrey Youngs at five and six singles won 6-0, 6-0.
At doubles, Haddorff and Bochman won 8-3, Hug and Fiorda 8-1, then Sehlin and Youngs 8-0.
The wins didn’t stop there: the guys at St. Olaf also brought home a victory as well as winning the first MIAC match of the season. “[The match] went really well, I’d say the highlight of it was getting to see a bunch of freshmen in there, and that was their first conference match of their career for them so it was fun getting to see them getting that first win under their belt,” Junior Jack Bergmeyer said.
In singles, no 1 singles Junior Oscar Wikstrom won 7-6, 6-2 followed by First-year Rafael Costa 6-1, 6-0 Sophomore Caleb Fridinger 6-3, 6-1 Bergmeyer 6-1, 6-0 First-year Taona Mhwandagara 6-0, 6-0 and then Senior Joseph Punnoose 6-0, 6-1.
In doubles, Fridinger and Wikstrom won 8-3 then Punnoose and Bergmeyer 8-1 and then Costa and Mhwandagara 8-5.
Unfortunately the team couldn’t keep the winning streak up and lost 2-9 against UND.“ We definitely wanted to win the match for sure and I definitely think we had the ability to but going in to it, this is a very doable match and one that we can pull out,” Junior Alex Budde said.
“It was a bit more intense, we have seen some D3 teams that were pretty close to the level that they were but, it definitely was a different level of intensity that we needed to be prepared for,” Budde said.
Budde at four singles won his match 7-5, 6-1 and doubles partners Senior Drew Elofson and First-year Josh Christensen won 7-6 but the rest of the Gusties weren’t so lucky.
“It definitely went my way that day but it was one of those where there were a couple close points and I was able to pull ahead. I was definitely able to put on the pressure where he kinda was, I don’t want to say giving up at the end but he definitely looked a little defeated and it was one of those feel good matches because I was playing really well and really was able to take the racquet out of his hand,” Budde said.
As much as tennis is an individual sport, the team always cheered one another on. Even while they were in completely different locations. “At the Bethany Lutheran match there were livestreams so a lot of us were watching those while we weren’t playing. And then we have team group chats and we were all sending messages in there trying to keep up with scores,” Sehlin said.
“Everyday we are just looking to be louder, be more supportive of each other and just bring more and more energy every time since it’s the start of the season we have a long way to go but we are ready for it,” Bergmeyer said. Gustavus will face off against Grinnell at home for their next match.