An unhealthy Ball State team fell to No. 49 Michigan State 6-1 in the Northwest YMCA 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 in the No. 2 singles in straight sets. Morrison was down 2-5 in the first set, but rattled off five straight points to win the set 7-5.
"The umpire opened up a can of tennis balls for the second set, [and] 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 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 Ball State. Albertin and Morrison, who were sick during the week and were not at full strength for the match, did not play in the doubles matches.
"Physically, today I was probably at 80% and I hadn't hit anything since last Friday, so I was a little bit rusty," Albertin said.
Morrison was not 100% 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 and Albertin 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," Richards 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 a 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.
"Any time you play a quality opponent that's Big Ten and rank nationally, obviously you're excited about that opportunity," Richards said.
Ball State drops to 6-2 on the season, but will have a chance to bounce back Sunday as it hosts UW-Green Bay and Dayton at the Northwest YMCA.
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