The season ends for Portland State

On Friday, the Portland State men’s tennis team was humbled 0-7 by conference opponents Eastern Washington in Cheney, Wash., in their last conference game of 2011. And in the last game of the season on Saturday, the Vikings went down 2-5 to Idaho’s Lewis-Clark State.

 With these results, the Vikings close their 2011 season with five wins and 13 losses. In the Big Sky conference, the Viks won two of their eight matches, finishing seventh among the nine teams. Last season the Viks finished fifth in the conference with a 4-4 record and just missed out on qualifying for the playoffs.

 Going into Friday’s conference encounter against Eastern Washington, the Viks were already out of contention for the playoffs. But the Viks still had pride to play for against the Eagles. This also was the last conference game for the team’s outgoing seniors Chris Rice, Alex VanDerschelden, Matt Erickson, Vetu Mam and team captain Jeff Cero.

 Rice started off his doubles game just like it was his last. He teamed up with sophomore Mitch Somach against Eastern Washington’s Koetje and Simikij at doubles line one and won the set 8-7 (11-9) in a tie-breaker.

However, Portland State lost the other two doubles matches and the doubles point to the Eagles. The pair of VanDerschelden and Mam came close, but went down 6-8 in their doubles game.

 The story in the singles matches was completely different though. Rice once again battled and stretched his game at line one to tie breaker in the second set, but eventually went down 4-6, 6-7 (6-8), Erickson too took his game to a second set tie-breaker, but fell 4-6, 6-7 (5-7). The Viks lost all the six singles matches and succumbed to a 0-7 thrashing.

 Despite this win, Eastern Washington did not qualify for the postseason. They finished their conference campaign in the sixth spot after a 4-4 performance this season. Last season, Eastern Washington had finished sixth as well, but had lost 3-4 to the Vikings.

 On Saturday, the Viks once again went behind in the doubles matches and lost the doubles point to Lewis-Clark State. On the singles side, the Viks lost at the first two singles lines, but pulled back two wins at lines three and four. Erickson defeated Lewis-Clark State’s Cesar Uauy 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 in a three setter, while sophomore Nick Fracchia won a tantalizing match against Oliver Sindayigaya 6-1, 7-6 (7-3) in a second set tie breaker. Still, the Viks lost the singles duels at line five and four, thereby conceding the overall game 2-5 to Lewis-Clark State.

 Sacramento State was crowned as the Big Sky regular season champions after recording a perfect 8-0 result in 2011. This was their third successive regular season championship. The last time that Sacramento State went through the regular season unbeaten was in 2009. ?