University of Wisconsin LaCrosse

This afternoon the Norse faced off against the 16th ranked team in the ITA Central Section, UW Lacrosse and came out victorious. This was the first ranked team that the Norse have played this year and the first extremely challenging team that we played. We came out a little tentative in the first set and were down a break in #1 and #3 doubles. LaCrosse played excellent in doubles and showed that they have a great doubles line up. Number one doubles ended up coming back from that break down and winning the match while #3 doubles fought hard but couldn't quite bring the match back into grasp. Here is how the scores went down:
Sundstrom/Karki (LUT) def. Nick Piotrowski/Peter Stadum 8-6
Whiteley/Gendron (LUT) def. Bud Fekete/Steve Quiring 8-3
CJ Schmid/Tyler Bertelsen (UWL) def. Zinnecker/Piepkorn (LUT) 8-5

Luther came out really strong in singles against UWL well aware of the implications in winning the match. Starting off strong for the Norse was Harry Whiteley at #2 singles. Harry is a senior and is looking to have his best season in his career at Luther. Also winning important matches were Sam Burman and Aaron Gendron. Here is how the singles matches concluded:
Sundstrom (LUT) def. Piotrowski (UWL) 4-6, 6-3, 10-5
Whiteley (LUT) def. Fekete (UWL) 6-0, 6-4
Karki (LUT) def. Quiring (UWL) 6-0, 6-2
Mozena (LUT) def. Stadum (UWL) 6-4, 6-2
Gendron (LUT) def. Mirasola (UWL) 6-3, 6-4
Burman (LUT) def. Schwind (UWL) 6-4, 6-2


This was a great weekend for Luther tennis, knocking off the #16 team in the Central Region. This was our first ranked opponent we faced all year and we feel like we handled them quite nicely. We were very mature in our win and worked together as a team to overcome the two breaks we were down in the doubles matches. This match could have very easily gone a different way, us being down 1-2 and having a much different attitude going into singles, instead Sundstrom/Karki pulled through and won their doubles match. This was a great day and a great way to go into next weekend which we face two very good teams; Depauw who is currently ranked #18 in the nation and Grand Valley State, a very good NCAA Division II team. Check for scores after our matches here on norsetennis.blogspot.com. The matches start at 8:30 am and 2:30 pm.

NM