March 31, 2012
Contact: Renee Adam
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CLEVELAND, Ohio - For the first time in four seasons the Cleveland State men's tennis team dropped a Horizon League regular season contest, falling to Youngstown State 4-3 Saturday afternoon. The loss snapped CSU's 26-match regular season win streak that the Vikings had in league contests only. Cleveland State is now 7-9 on the season and 1-1 in league play, while the Penguins improve to 7-6 (2-0).
"I knew at some point we would lose a match and our streak would end, but I didn't think it would be today," head coach Brian Etzkin said. "Youngstown State is a team that is still building and improving, but I give them 100% credit for beating us today. In a couple of the singles matches we were up late, but YSU played better under pressure and they were able to pull out the wins."
Cleveland State was only able to win one of the doubles matches against the Penguins, giving YSU the early 1-0 advantage. The No. 2 doubles team of Yannick Goossens and Matt Ford claimed an 8-2 victory for the Vikings.
CSU rebounded with three straight singles victories though, giving the Vikings a 3-1 advantage with three singles matches still in progress. The first singles win came from Goossens at No. 1 singles, as he cruised to a 6-0, 6-2 victory. Ford followed that up with a convincing 6-1, 6-3 win at No. 6 singles, while Nolan Marks capitalized on crucial points to come away with a 6-4, 6-3 win at the No. 5 spot.
The Vikings needed just one more win out of the three remaining singles contests, but despite giving the matches everything they had, CSU came up short at No. 2, 3 and 4 singles. Ali Shabib and Jorg Van Der Vloet each forced their matches to three sets, Shabib falling 6-3, 7-5, 7-6 (0) and van der Vloet falling 6-3, 4-6, 7-5. Matt Kuelker also battled during his No. 2 singles match, but came up short in a 7-6 (6), 7-6 (5) decision.
"Throughout the entire match today we had chances to put it away but we could never finish it," Etzkin said. "We are going to use this as motivation moving forward and hopefully begin a new streak. Everyone is committed to practicing harder throughout the rest of the season and coming back to finish out strong." Throughout the contest Saturday, CSU was 0-for-4 in tiebreakers, while the Vikings also dropped any set that went to 5 in singles play.
Next weekend Cleveland State will host Green Bay in their lone contest of the week. CSU will meet the Phoenix at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday (April 7) at Peak Performance Center in Broadview Heights, Ohio (unless otherwise noted on CSUVikings.com).
Youngstown State 4, Cleveland State 3
Doubles:
1. T. Ismail/Kabli (YSU) def. Marks/Shabib (CSU), 8-6
2. Goossens/Ford (CSU) def. Schmerin/Campos (YSU), 8-2
3. Mistreanu/Z. Ismail (YSU) def. Kuelker/van der Vloet (CSU), 9-8 (5)
Sinlges:
1. Goossens, Yannick (CSU) def. Tariq Ismail (YSU) 6-0, 6-2
2. Silviu Mistreanu (YSU) def. Kuelker, Matt (CSU) 7-6 (7), 7-6 (5)
3. Dawoud Kabli (YSU) def. Shabib, Ali (CSU) 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (0)
4. Max Schmerin (YSU) def. Van Der Vloet, Jorg (CSU) 6-3, 4-6, 7-5
5. Marks, Nolan (CSU) def. Rodrigo Campos (YSU) 6-4, 6-3
6. Ford, Matt (CSU) def. Felipe Rosa (YSU) 6-1, 6-3
