Long and winding road

The Portland State men’s tennis team struggled on the road this weekend. The Vikings lost their games against Utah State (0-7), Utah (0-7) and were narrowly edged out by fellow Big Sky competitor Weber State (3-4). With these results the Vikings are now 3-5 on the season and languishing at the bottom of the Big Sky table with an 0-2 league record.

On the other hand, the women’s team started their road trip with a thumping 7-0 win over Montana State-Billings. But the Vikings could not keep the momentum and lost their other two games to conference rivals, Montana State (2-5) and Montana (1-6). This leaves the women’s team with a 3-7 overall record and 0-3 in conference. They too are currently at the bottom of the Big Sky table.

The men’s team went into their away games in Utah after a strong showing against Big Sky champions Sacramento State and Seattle last week. However, on Friday, against Utah State, the players folded and lost all three doubles and all six singles matches. Sophomore Mitch Somach was the only Vikings player who was able to extend his game to three sets. Somach lost to Utah State’s Fredrik Peterson 5-7, 6-4, 6-3.

The performance of the team on Saturday against Utah was slightly better, but the result remained the same. The pair of senior Chris Rice and freshman Roman Margoulis won their doubles dual against Alejandro Medinilla and Devin Lane 8-2, but the Viks lost the other two doubles matches and the doubles point. In the singles, the Vikings tasted defeat at all the six lines.

The most important game of the weekend for the team was the Big Sky encounter against Weber State. In 2010, the Viks had lost 2-5 to the Wildcats at home. This severely hampered the team’s chances of qualifying for the Big Sky semis. The Viks had finished fifth in the conference.

On Sunday, however, things started off slowly for the Vikings. They lost two of their three doubles game and the doubles point. With the fate of the match resting on the singles matches, the Viks fought hard but were only able to split their six singles games 3-3. Somach, Margoulis and senior Matt Erickson were able to win their respective matches. Thus the Viks had to be content with a 3-4 loss and came back home with three losses from their road trip.

Next up for the men is another conference dual against Northern Colorado on Saturday. The time and venue for the event has not yet been announced.

For the women’s team, the away streak in Montana couldn’t have started any better. Against Montana State-Billings on Friday, the Vikings won all three doubles and all six singles games to register a convincing 7-0 win. But after that, the going got tough for the Viks.

Against conference opponents Montana State, Portland State won one of the three doubles matches and two of the six singles matches. The team lost the contest 2-5. Freshman Yuki Sugiyama was the only player to win both her singles (7-5, 6-4) and her doubles matches (8-6). Sugiyama was battling the flu and had missed practice going into these games.

Sugiyama battled hard in her games against Big Sky rivals Montana on Sunday but lost both her singles (1,-6, 6-4,10-4) and her doubles (7-9) matches. Freshman Marina Todd was the only Viking to win her singles game. Todd defeated Madeline Murray 6-1,6-2. With this 1-6 defeat, the Viks slip to 3-7 for the season and 0-3 in the conference. Next weekend, the women battle Gonzaga and Northern Colorado at the Club Green Meadows in Vancouver, Wash. ?