After a long weekend at the Milwaukee Tennis Classic, Ball State knows it has a lot to improve on.
Thankfully for the Cardinals, that's what fall play is all about, preparing for Mid-American Conference action in the spring, so they have time to work.
"We faced some tough competition," coach Bill Richards said. "From a team standpoint, all nine players we took got to play a lot, which is good for experience."
Richards described the play of his team was described as average. It's early in the year, but he knows his team needs to take bigger strides to better themselves.
"We don't have the conference championship for another seven months," he said. "We've got a long process ahead. We can't do everything at once. We need to take one step at a time."
Richards said standout play came from sophomore Dalton Albertin.
"Dalton was our high marks for the weekend," Richards said. "He won one match at No. 1 and lost another match at No. 1 against a strong player. He had the best weekend out of anyone going 2-1."
The first day was a productive one for the Cardinals. Ball State's Andres Monroy and Derek Carpenter took the only doubles win that day, defeating Wisconsin's Petr Satral and Alex Robels 8-6.
Monroy and Carpenter won both matches at No. 2 doubles over the weekend.
Ball State hosted Marquette in singles the first day as well. The Cardinals earned three wins over the Golden Eagles, including Albertin's two-set victory over Otavio Perim, 6-2, 6-4 and Alexandre Brym's 6-4, 6-2 win against Thibault Troude.
Albertin said a lot of the guys can win at the lower levels of competition, but being able to compete at high levels is where he wants the team to be.
"We have a lot of talent on the team. Some people have to improve on different parts of their game," he said. "I need to continue on my serve. If I can do that, it will be easier to compete against upper players."
Richards said he thought his team is a little further along in singles than they are in doubles. The doubles play isn't where he would like it to be at this point.
"We need to be consistent and start spending more time on improving our doubles play," he said.
He said wasn't disappointed with any of his players but they did have a lot of average performances.
Junior Zane Smith received the sportsmanship award at the end of the tournament. It was the second year in a row a Cardinal won the award.
"A real positive note is Zane being given the sportsmanship award," Richards said. "Coaches, players and officials all vote on who gets the awards, and that speaks highly of him and our program. It's a very prestigious award."
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