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POCATELLO, Idaho- While the Idaho State's men's tennis team's 4-0 loss to Northern Arizona in the Big Sky Conference Tournament championship wasn't what the team hoped for, it did show the future is bright for the program. The Bengals finished the season 8-11 and won eight of the last 11 matches.
"Obviously this is not the ending we were hoping for but the story of the season has to be the resilience of our team throughout the season," Idaho State coach
Alexander Free said. "We were picked to finish eighth in the Big Sky and started 0-7. It would have been easy for any team to give up but our team did a great job of bringing a great mentality to the courts, working to get better and sticking together as a group."
Northern Arizona won the doubles points.
Patrik Trhac and
Aleksander Petrovic earned a 6-0 win at No. 1 doubles.
The remaining two double matches came to tiebreakers in the set as
Wikus Robbertse and
Hiroki Fujita lost 7-5 and
Jaime Castillo-Lopez and
Gary Rendek lost 7-6 (11-9).
NAU clinched the match by winning at No.6, 2 and 5 singles. Trhac's match at No. 1 singles, Castillo-Lopez's match at No. 3 and Fujita's contest at No. 4 went unfinished due to NAU already having won the championships.
"This whole season had so many extra things we've asked our guys to do and my only regret of the season is that we didn't send our seniors out in the NCAA Tournament," Free said.
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