After losing to Northwestern 6-1 last season in Evanston, Ill., the Ball State men's tennis team went into its spring opener Sunday looking for retribution.
By the end of the day, the Cardinals suffered the same result as last season, a 6-1 road loss to Northwestern.
"We did good, we did average and we did bad," coach Bill Richards said. "The scores pretty much speak for themselves."
In singles play, the scores show Ball State won one out of its six matches. The lone victory for the Cardinals came at the hands of their No. 4 singles player, junior Alex Brym. He defeated Tobias Reitz 6-1, 6-4.
"I played him last year, and I lost in the third set," Brym said. "So we both knew how to play each other. I knew he was going to play a high percent of the time on my back end. So I was just ready to stay forward, take away my back end and make him make the mistakes."
In No. 1 singles, junior Dalton Albertin lost 6-3, 5-7, 11-9 to Sidarth Balaji.
"I had two match points in the third set," Albertin said. "So I put myself in the situation that I wanted to be in. I just wasn't able to capitalize."
Albertin said the area he was unable to capitalize on the most was his first serve percentage in the third set tiebreak.
"If I was able to probably make two more first serves in the third set tiebreak, I think I would've been able to pull away with the victory," he said. "But again, I tried as hard as I could. I fought. I put myself right where I wanted to be. It wasn't my day today, but sometimes it happens. Not everybody can win."
On the doubles side, Ball State lost all three of its matches. In No.1 doubles, Albertin and freshman Ray Leonard lost 8-6 to Spencer Wolf and Joshua Graves. Seniors Zane Smith and Derek Carpenter lost in No. 2 doubles 8-5 to Alexandru Pasareanu and Raleigh Smith while freshman Patrick Elliott and junior Austin Sansone lost their No.3 doubles match 8-4 to Tobias Reitz and Balaji.
Despite the 6-1 loss, Brym said the team shouldn't worry going forward.
"I don't think we should be discouraged about anything," he said. "We didn't play that bad. They [Northwestern] were just good today."
Ball State will return to action Friday when it travels to Champaign, Ill. to face No. 17 Illinois.
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