The No. 41-ranked N.C. State men’s tennis team split matches this weekend in the 2013 ITA Kick Off in Oxford, Miss., moving to 3-1 on the young season.
In the opening round of the event, the Wolfpack took a 4-2 victory on Friday against the 36th-ranked Louisville Cardinals, taking the doubles point and grabbing three singles wins to capture the victory.
The Pack’s top doubles team, comprised of senior Dave Thomson and junior Sean Weber, gave the team a head start with an 8-5 win over the No. 31 doubles team in the nation, Albert Wagner and Alex Gornet.
Louisville fought back against sophomore Robbie Mudge and freshman Thomas Weigel as State dropped the match, 8-4.
With the doubles point tied at one apiece, sophomores Beck Bond and Austin Powell gave N.C. State an early 1-0 match lead by sealing the doubles point, taking down their opponents by an 8-5 count.
The Cardinals took the lead in singles after downing the Wolfpack’s No. 1 and No. 2 players, Powell and Thomson. Powell dropped a 6-4, 6-2 bout to 82nd-ranked Sebastian Stiefelmeyer. Thomson fell in a three-set battle, 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, giving Louisville a 2-1 match lead.
State bounced back by taking three consecutive matches at courts 3, 4 and 5 to claim victory over the Cardinals. Mudge took his match 6-3, 3-6, 6-2, Weigel zeroed in after the first match to take a 4-6, 6-0, 6-2 win and Weber won in straight sets, 7-5, 6-2.
“[Louisville]’s been a pretty solid team for a long time, so we felt really good about going in there and playing those guys,” head coach Jon Choboy said. “I think our guys showed a lot of toughness and a lot of courage.”
With the win, the Pack moved to the championship match against No. 11 Mississippi, who took down the No. 44 Columbia Lions to advance against NCSU.
Unfortunately for the Wolfpack, Saturday was a different story as the team was swept, 4-0, by the Rebels.
In doubles, the Wolfpack netters dropped their first two matches on courts No. 1 and 3, sealing the doubles point for Ole Miss.
Weber and Thomson were the first off the court following an 8-4 loss. Mudge and Weigel were not far behind them, losing 8-3 to give the Rebels an early 1-0 advantage heading into singles.
Singles did not prove to be any better for the Pack, dropping three straight matches to ranked opponents at the 1, 2 and 3 spots in the lineup.
The Rebels made quick work of the Wolfpack. Powell faced off against No. 33 Nik Scholtz, losing 6-2, 6-3. Thomson took on a top-five opponent in Jonas Lutjen, falling 6-1, 6-2. Mudge closed out the match for the Pack, as 95th-ranked William Kallberg topped him.
The Pack’s singles lineup features two freshmen, two sophomores and a junior who has not been a regular in the singles lineup before — a fairly young top-six. Despite the loss, Choboy has been satisfied with their performance so far on a playing field that they are all still adjusting to.
“It’s nice to see our guys buckle down,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of young first and second year players in the lineup, so it’s new to a lot of these guys. We’re pretty proud of them for being able to do that.”
Choboy seems very optimistic about the team’s future and believes that the team can compete with the upper echelon of teams in the nation, such as Ole Miss.
“Mississippi is top-15 in the country and that is what we’re building this program to be,” Choboy said. “I think this match was a little bit of an awakening for our guys to understand what they need to do to be put in that company. Our objective is to be one of the best teams in the country.”
N.C. State will return home and prepare for its next match against Northwestern on Friday, Feb. 1 at 4:30 p.m. in the J.W. Isenhour Tennis Center.
