End of the road for the Vikings

“We will be very disappointed if we don’t make it to the playoffs,” head coach Jay Sterling said before heading into the weekends matches against Montana State and Montana. “It was our teams goal when we started our season. It was something we all agreed to. We finished fifth last year. We want to do better this time.”

 Sadly, the Portland State men’s tennis team will have to be content with not making it to the Big Sky semis this season. The team slipped to seventh in the conference after losing on the road to Montana State (2-5) and Montana (1-6). With these results, the team now holds a 2-5 record in the conference and 5-11 overall. The Viks have just one more conference game left to play.

 On Friday, the game against Montana State started on a sour note. The Vikings lost all three doubles sets and the doubles point. The pair of senior Chris Rice and freshman Roman Margoulis fought hard, but fell to their opponents 8-5. Senior Alex VanDerschelden and sophomore Mitch Somach narrowly went down to their Bobcats opponents 8-7 as well.

 In the singles, the Viks managed to register two wins, but lost the other four matches. At line three, Somach beat Montana State’s Alberto Fuentes in straight sets of 6-3 and 6-4. Margoulis won his match against P. SivaSubramanium 6-2, 6-4 at line six. Despite those two strong efforts, the Viks still lost the overall contest 2-5 to Montana State on the road.

 With their playoff hopes disappearing, the Viks knew that the game against Montana the following day in Missoula would be crucial, even just to match their 4-4 conference performance in 2010.  However, things got off to a bad start once again.

 The Vikings again lost all three doubles matches. The team of VanDerschelden and Somach lost in a heartbreaking tiebreaker 8-7 (4) at line two of doubles competition. On the singles side, Somach once again emerged victorious at line three. Somach defeated Montana’s Mike Facey in a thrilling three-setter 4-6, 6-3, 10-7. However, this was the only silver lining in an otherwise disappointing result, as the Viks lost the remaining five singles games.

 The Vikings play their last two games of 2011 against Eastern Washington in Cheney, Wash. on Friday and against Lewis-Clark State in Lewiston, Idaho on Saturday.?