Lance Koetter smiled with a feeling of vindication as he raised his finger in the air to signal that Marquette senior Eigis Vedrickas' shot was just outside the line.
Vedrickas rolled his eyes and looked to the line judge but got the same signal.
You cannot blame Vedrickas if he might have thought the Wright State sophomore was being less than honest. Thirty seconds earlier, Vedrickas called a close ball out of bounds, prompting Koetter to run up to the net and protest. But without a line judge around to confirm the call, Koetter could only label Vedrickas a cheater and give his own one-finger signal above his head as he walked back into position.
Two points later, Koetter made the call that won him the game to brake Vedrickas' serve and put Koetter up 4-2 in the first set. Koetter went on to win in two sets, but any satisfaction he got from it could not have lasted long. Any finger he wanted to hold up would equal the total tally of points Wright State had at the end of the day, for Marquette rebounded from last Wednesday's loss to Illinois-Chicago with a 6-1 defeat of the Raiders on Sunday.
"After Wednesday, we had a pretty intense week of practice," said head coach Steve Rodecap.
The hard work showed on the courts, and Marquette won two of the three doubles matches to take the first point.
Sophomore Greg Sirotek downed Wright State's Michael Hall with a quick 6-0, 6-0 win in No. 6 singles, and freshman Stephen Shao won his No. 5 singles match 6-3, 6-0 to give the Golden Eagles a fast 3-0 lead. Needing one more match for a win and with two players already up a set, Marquette was in a comfortable spot.
"I felt confident with what we had left out there, that we could get another point," Rodecap said.
That point ended up going to senior Ian Kawas, who had lost his No. 1 doubles match with Vedrickas. After losing the first set 1-6, Kawas came back to beat Nicolas Camalleri 1-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2.He said he was unaware, during his match, that a win would seal the victory for Marquette.
"I try not to see how the other guys are doing, but it was nice to hear that," Kawas said.
Freshman Trent Hagan and sophomore Brett Binkley added another two points with wins, but even with the five-point win, Rodecap gave credit to the Wright State players, who played with a lot of energy.
Rodecap also said his players still have a long way to go to make days like Sunday a more regular occurrence.