By Sam Bartee
It was a bittersweet weekend for the ACU tennis team having the women dominate, yet the men come up short.
The men of the ACU tennis team saw their two-match winning streak come to an end Friday afternoon. And after a rough weekend overall, they dropped to 2-4 by Sunday.
Playing with the home court advantage on Friday, the Wildcats lost to Lamar, 4-3. The Cardinals won the doubles point before Lamar and ACU split the six singles matches. ACU played without Bryan Joiner, who was out with an illness.
The ACU men ran into another bind Saturday afternoon as the 23rd-ranked Wildcats dropped a 7-0 decision to 43rd-ranked Texas Tech. The Red Raiders, 5-1, dominated every set in singles, losing only seven games again, while some claimed straight-set victories without losing a single game.
Tech had already won the match when doubles play started, but ACU’s only highlight of the day came at No. 1 doubles when Luke Hawk and John Strahl knocked off the nation’s 19th-ranked doubles tandem, Raony Carvalho and Rafael Garcia, 9-8.
“It makes us better to play the best,” Coach Hutton Jones explained. “Even though this weekend didn’t look good on paper, it was a learning experience.”
The ACU women’s tennis team had a more positive outcome this weekend. The Wildcats swept a pair of non-conference women’s tennis matches Saturday, including a win over Division I opponent Texas-San Antonio.
The Lady Wildcats, 6-1 on the season and ranked No. 6 in the country, beat the Roadrunners 7-0 early Saturday and then knocked off St. Mary’s, 9-0. The Wildcats were dominant in both matches on Saturday, losing just one set in 18 matches and not losing more than four points in any of the other 17 sets.
“We went out there and dominated.” Coach Jones says with enthusiasm. “We really just took care of business.”
ACU won’t be back on the courts again until Feb. 26-27 when they travel to Idaho State, Metropolitan State, the Air Force Academy and Colorado State-Pueblo.
