The good news is Ball State has defeated every team it was expected to defeat this season. The bad news is it has not won against a team as the underdog.
Ball State won a double header day against Wisconsin-Green Bay 4-3 and Dayton 4-0 Sunday after losing to No. 49 Michigan State 6-1 Saturday.
"It was a long day and it's good to get out with two wins," assistant coach Jeff Nevolo said. "We have a week and a half to work some kinks."
Wisconsin-Green Bay pushed Ball State to the 4-3 final. Dayton chose not to finish three singles matches once Ball State reached the four points it needed.
"Green Bay has improved a lot," Nevolo said. "They brought in some good players. We came up with some big points in doubles especially."
The Cardinals struggled to be competitive in all the singles matches against the Spartans on Saturday.
"We had four guys in singles who gave themselves a chance and two who didn't." coach Bill Richards said. "When you play a good team like Michigan State, you got to give yourself a chance in every match. If you play them close, you'll win some and lose some of them, but you can't get blown out."
Junior Cliff Morrison scored the only point for the Cardinals, winning at No. 2 singles in straight sets. Morrison was down 2-5 in the first set then rattled off five straight points to win the set 7-5.
"The umpire opened up a can of tennis balls for the second set. He thought I was going to lose when I was down 5-2 and that made me really angry," Morrison said. "I carried the momentum into the second set and got him frustrated."
Sophomore Dalton Albertin lost at No. 1 singles on a third set tie-breaker by a score of 12-10.
Michigan State won the doubles point, winning two of the three matches. Juniors Zane Smith and Derek Carpenter won No. 1 doubles for the Cardinals. Albertin and Morrison were sick during the week and were not at full strength for the match as neither of them played in doubles.
"Physically today I was probably at 80 percent, and I hadn't hit anything since last Friday so I was a little bit rusty," Albertin said.
Morrison was not 100 percent either but was mostly recovered from his flu in the middle of the week.
"I went to the Health Center Wednesday and they told me I had a flu, I had chills, I had body aches," Morrison said.
Richards does not use Albertin and Morrison being sick as an excuse for the doubles point.
"We would have preferred to play our normal doubles line-up, but Carpenter and Smith did get a win," he said. "You would always like to play at full strength but that's not an excuse."
The Cardinals lost the other four singles matches in straight sets.
In addition to Morrison and Albertin being sick, Andres Monroy missed his seventh straight match with his hip injury. Monroy saw a hip specialist in Indianapolis this week and received an encouraging report.
"Monroy got a good report yesterday," Richards said. "The hip specialist in Indianapolis didn't declare that it was a structural problem so he cleared him to start hitting again."
Michigan State is coached by Gene Orlando, a Ball State alum. The Spartans are the only Big Ten Conference team that will play the Cardinals home and away.
After the weekend, Ball State moves to 8-2 on the season. Ball State will not play again until March 3 against No. 9 Illinois.
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