Marquette men’s tennis (1-9, 0-3 Big East) tallied a much-needed home win over IU Indianapolis (4-5) on Friday but came up short against Northern Illinois (5-4) Sunday in DeKalb.
Against the Jaguars, the Golden Eagles found themselves in an early 1-0 deficit due to the IU Indy claiming the doubles point with victories at the No. 1 and No. 3 doubles positions. First-years Hugh Perrill and Kristian Blagoev won the No. 2 doubles set, 6-3, for the Golden Eagles. The Jaguars then won the No. 3 singles match to extend their lead to 2-0, but the Golden Eagles had other plans in mind.
Blake Roegner (No. 1), TJ Ryerson (No. 4), and Cyrus Ahmad (No. 2), all won their singles matches to bring the overall team score to 3-2 in favor of Marquette. First-year Remi St. Laurent clinched the match for the Golden Eagles at the No. 5 singles position by a tale of two sets. He jumped out to an early lead by winning the first set 6-1, but after battling back to force a tiebreaker in the second set, he won the tiebreak, 7-5 and ultimately sealed the first home victory of the season. After St. Laurent’s clinch, Perrill took the No. 6 singles match in two sets to make it 5-2 Marquette.
St. Laurent said that clinching the match provided a rallying point amidst the team’s rough start.
“It felt good, all my teammates worked really hard. We’ve had a really tough beginning of the season, so I did it for the whole team, we all deserve it, I’m just the one that clutched it up, but everyone deserves it,” St. Laurent said.
In Sunday’s tilt against Northern Illinois, Marquette fell short 5-2. First-year TJ Ryerson and junior Ivan Vazquez won the No. 3 doubles set 6-3, but the Huskies claimed the point due to picking up the No. 1 and No. 2 sets. Blagoev prevailed in the No. 3 singles match, 1-6, 7-6, 6-4 in comeback fashion.
First-year Evan Glebov won his first career match, playing at No. 6 singles, 7-5, 6-2. But the Huskies won the four other singles matches, at No. 1, No. 2, No. 4 and No. 5, ultimately coming away with the win on their home court.
Marquette gears up for a three-match homestand at the Sprovieri Tennis Complex against North Dakota (6-3), Feb. 21 at 4 p.m. CST, Dayton (8-2, 1-0 Atlantic-10), Feb. 23 at 2 p.m. CST and Wisconsin (4-1) on Feb. 27 at 5:30 p.m. CST.
This article was written by Mikey Severson. He can be reached at michael.severson@marquette.edu or on Twitter/X @MikeySeversonMU.
