NAU men’s tennis finished 31-20 overall in the University of New Mexico Balloon Fiesta Invitational on Oct. 9, 10 and 11. Hosted by the UNM Lobos, the eight-team tournament consisted of players from Division-I team’s Northern Arizona, New Mexico State, Northern Colorado, Air Force and Division-II  team’s Western New Mexico, New Mexico Military Institute and Glendale Community College.

On the first day of the tournament, sophomore Andrew Reiff, junior David Flodberg, sophomore Robin Pezzutto and freshman Patrick Schimmelbauer won their first-round singles matches in the A-draw. 

Reiff advanced to the B-draw quarterfinals on Oct. 10 after a 6-3, 6-4 win against New Mexico State’s Craig Duran, but lost 6-3, 7-5 to NMSU’s Ben Dunbar.

“I’m not exactly satisfied with how I played,” Reiff said. “I have a lot of room for improvement. I need to keep working to get there. I’m not quite back from where I was last spring.”

Head coach Kim Bruno said she feels confident Reiff can do better before regionals in Las Vegas, Nev. and said her team played excellent tennis at the UNM tournament.

“It was a really good weekend for NAU,” Bruno said. “Overall, the team played about seven hours of tennis each day this weekend. Next, we have to focus on what we saw from this weekend and become more mentally ready to compete at even a higher level than before.”

Freshman Kevin Taylor collected the most wins for the Jacks by defeating Northern Colorado’s Travis Day 6-2, 6-2 then moving on to defeat William O’Connell of New Mexico Military Institute 6-4, 6-3, which catapulted him  into the quarterfinals.

Taylor, freshman Ben Lantz and sophomore Josh Brown lost their first matches in the B-draw quarterfinals, but  rebounded with wins in consolation matches. 

“I was pretty surprised I lost that first set,” Taylor said. “I feel I made a good comeback afterward, though, with my second set.”

Taylor remained undefeated in the B-draw until UNM’s Conor Berg took a 6-4, 6-3 victory in the title match. Flodberg and freshman Hugo Ramdier both recorded straight-set victories over Air Force opponents on Oct. 11 to win their individual consolation matches. 

On Oct. 11, Lantz and Taylor took an 8-0 doubles victory over Northern Colorado, and Flodberg and Schimmelbauer played a consolation match against their teammates, Pezzutto and Reiff, winning 8-4.

Overall, NAU took five consolation victories at the end of the tournament.

“These first two tournaments gave us good experience before regionals,” Bruno said. “We have a lot of matches under our belt, and we can see exactly where we were in terms of our ability, strengths and weaknesses. Regionals is a tournament we have to go into, do some damage and get ranked.”

The Lumberjacks compete next in The Intercollegiate Tennis Association Regional Championships on Oct 21. in Las Vegas, Nev.