Sophomores Zane Smith and Andres Monroy stand ready to receive serve from Purdue University. Ball State University is up 6-5 in the match. It is match point.
'You never want to say one point turned the outcome of a match because that is impossible to tell,' Ball State men's tennis coach Bill Richards said. 'This one point was huge though and definitely changed the momentum.'
Purdue's serve hit the net and was called out by Monroy and Smith. This call would have given Ball State the doubles point and a 1-0 team lead going into the singles matches.
'I firmly believe if we would have won the doubles point, we would have won the match,' Richards said. 'It would have given us incredible confidence throughout the rest of the match.'
Unfortunately for the Cardinals, the umpire overruled the call. An overruled call results in an immediate point awarded to the other team. This allowed the Boilermakers to battle back an eventually win the No. 2 doubles match 9-8.
'That was as tough a call as I have ever experienced in my coaching career,' Richards said. 'However, I don't want that to be the focal point of the match. We had plenty of opportunities to capitalize and we just didn't pull it out.'
Ball State went on to lose the match 5-2 as well, dropping its record to 2-2 on the season.
'We had a lot of close games and close sets,' Richards said. 'The match really could have gone either way. Purdue came through better in crucial situations than we did, so they came out on top.'
The Cardinals were led by junior Eduardo Pavia and freshman Dalton Albertin. They defeated the number one doubles team of the Boilermakers together as well as winning both of their singles' matches.
'Eduardo had a great day in both singles and doubles,' Richards said. 'He is our leader in terms of performance and the guys really lean on him. He was strong from start to finish.'
Richards knows there are just a few things standing in the way for his team before getting over the hump.
'It is a combination of things both physically and mentally,' Richards said. 'There are guys with things in their game that break down under pressure. With a little extra belief and confidence we should start to get over the hump.'
Richards probably hopes something will click this week as the Cardinals travel to face their third Big Ten opponent of the year. They will face Michigan State University on Feb. 6 in East Lansing, Mich.
'It is a long season and its all about trying to put pieces of the puzzle together,' Richards said. 'We need to get the right people out there and just capitalize on our opportunities.'
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