After winning every set last weekend against IUPUI and Valparaiso, Ball State's men's tennis team will face what will likely be their toughest test of the season when the Cardinals host No. 5 Illinois tomorrow.
Illinois, the 2003 national champions, have a stacked lineups that includes four nationally ranked singles players led by No. 2 Ryler Deheart and the No. doubles tandem of Deheart and GD Jones.
"We can't worry about Illinois and how good they have been and how good they are," coach Bill Richards said. "We need to go out on Saturday and win every point we can and see where we go from there."
The Cardinals will be led in singles by junior Matt Baccarani and Matt Laramore, who both dropped in two sets to Illinois last year.
Junior transfer Tony Epkey will make his second start as a Cardinal in the No. 3 spot, but after that, the lineup remains uncertain. While Klint Knable and Paul Newman have secured spots, Jan Polhamus and Patrick Thompson will play a challenge match tomorrow to determine the final single spot.
"I'm not in a position to arbitrarily say who is going to play and where," Richards said. "It's not like football or basketball where you can substitute players in halfway through, it's all or nothing. You don't sub, you have your six and that's it."
The doubles lineup will be led by the No. 56 duo of Baccarani and Thompson, followed by Brad Rhodes and Epkey and Knable and Newman rounding out the lineup.
Despite the challenge of facing one of the nations premiere tennis programs, Richards feels that this weekend will help his team no matter what the outcome.
"That's why we play the schedule we play," he said. "Certainly there's a risk of getting beaten pretty badly involved but it should make you a better team without the outcome.
"We have a stretch coming up here with five or six nationally ranked teams in a row, but this a good indicator of where we are on a national level. We want to be a national level team, and we have been in the past. This will be the best measuring stick we will ever have."
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