IU won two of its three games this weekend, beating No. 33 Penn State 4-0 and Butler 7-0.
The Hoosiers opened their triple-header weekend with a 4-0 loss to No. 5 Ohio State on Friday, but bounced back to beat both Penn State and Butler on Sunday.
The Buckeyes got the doubles point when the pair of Martin Joyce and Mikael Torpegaard beat seniors Sam Monette and Daniel Bednarczyk 6-3 at No. 1 doubles and Hunter Tubert and Ralf Steinbach beat senior Chris Essick and junior Stefan Lugonjic 6-3 at No. 2 doubles.
Ohio State then had victories in No. 2, No. 4 and No. 5 singles. Sophomore Raheel Manji who played No. 2 Torpegaard in No. 1 singles won the first set 7-6. Torpegaard came into the match with a 17-0 record in dual match play. Manji then dropped the second set 6-3, but the match was unfinished.
“We talked a lot about how disciplined Ohio State was when we played them,” IU Coach Jeremy Wurtzman said. “They didn’t really over hit and we need to learn from that and do the same thing especially on the bigger points. We have to be consistently disciplined.”
IU won the doubles points against Penn State when Manji and freshman Afonso Salgado beat Constant De La Bassetiere and Matt Galush 6-2 at No. 3 doubles and Monnette and Bednarczyk beat Christian Lutschaunig and David Kohan 6-2 at No.1 doubles.
The Hoosiers then chalked up five out of six first set victories in the singles. Monette, who had not played over the last weekend, got the Hoosiers their second point when he defeated Leonardo Stakhovsky 6-3, 6-2 in No. 1 singles. Salgado then scored the third point when he beat Ben Lieb 7-5, 6-4 in No. 6 singles.
“It feels good, it’s a really stressful week because though it wasn’t a major injury it was a little bug in the bottom of my back,” Monette said. “It’s definitely good to be back on the court.”
Junior Matthew McCoy then put his hand up to signal towards the stands and the sidelines when his shot ricochet off the net and bounced onto his opponent’s side of the court to give him the match point. McCoy then got the clincher when his opponent, Tomas Hanzlik, over hit his shot. The Bloomington native beat his opponent 6-3, 6-4.
“I don’t think it’s a bad season overall,” Monette said. “Today we were tougher and it proves that we’ve still got time and get even tougher for the bigger teams that ahead of us.”
IU also got the doubles points against Butler in Sunday evening’s match. The Hoosiers then had first set victories in all of their six matches to be them in a dominant position.
The Hoosiers then finished all six of their games in straight sets to give them a 7-0 victory over the Bulldogs.
Wurtzman said after the Penn State game that he hopes the Penn State game can spur the Hoosiers on to a good run to the end of the season.
“We’ve been waiting for this part of the season. We know that we were going to play a tough part of the season to start and this would lead us into this later part of the season,” Wurtzman said. “We would have wanted to win some of those matches, but you know it is what it is and our mindsets are still hungry and motivated to win and I guess it’s a great start to the end of the season.”
