NAU’s men’s tennis dropped two of three contests in Las Vegas this past weekend to end with a record of 3-2. Fresh off their strong victories the previous week the Lumberjacks lost to UNLV and Utah State 6-1 and 5-2. The Lumberjacks then capped off the weekend with a 4-3 nail-biter over St Mary’s (Cal).

“When you travel for the first time there’s always an adjustment for altitude, we have to learn what it takes to fight and win,” said assistant coach Rich Paulosky. “The points are a little bit longer, the players a little bit nastier. We had a chance but we weren’t able to come through.”

Reigning Big Sky Men’s Tennis Player of the Week Andrew Reiff claimed the lone singles victory against UNLV on Friday (6-4, 7-5.) The Lumberjacks were swept in doubles and only freshman Hugo Ramadier came close to another singles win.

Saturday against the Aggies NAU let a great opportunity slip away as they dominated in doubles but Utah St. rallied to win the singles. The tandems of Reiff/Pezzutto and Schimmelbauer/Flodberg won easily 8-3 and 8-5. Ramadier won the only singles match (6-1, 6-3) while Reiff and his doubles partner Sophomore Robin Pezzutto came close but fell by sets of 6-7, 7-6, 1-0 (10-7) and 5-7, 6-2, 7-5.

Sunday was a reversal of fortune with the close 4-3 victory over St. Mary’s (Cal) as Ramadier won in the tiebreaking third-set (3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (8-6) over Gavin Leon.

“I didn’t know I was playing for the win,” Ramadier said. “The thing is, we lost against a ranked UNLV, and we lost against Utah. This one was pretty important because a few guys hadn’t won a match. The more we play in low altitude the more we’ll get used to it.”

Reiff (6-1, 0-6, 7-5), and freshmen Ben Lantz (7-6 (7-5), 6-1) and Patrick Schimmelbauer (6-2, 6-3) won singles while Reiff/Pezzutto took doubles 8-6.
The women’s team lost their match 6-1 against Arizona in Tucson on Saturday.

“We were right in there, doubles, two doubles, they did things at the right moments,” said head coach Kim Bruno.” We had some opportunities and they took advantage of it. When you’re going into play a Pac-10 team, you better bring you’re “A” game and not falter. We didn’t do that today and they did.”

Freshmen Malia Wahinepio had the one singles win (5-7, 6-2, 1-0 (10-8) but players like junior Edit Suhajda made it close but lost 7-6, 7-5 against the Wildcats.
“I think we were pretty prepared, they were just better,” said junior Yumi Hasegawa. “We could’ve done better; we changed up our lineup a little bit and expected something different. We were pretty close, closer than the final score said.”

The box score would highlight the strong doubles effort of Nicole Perez/Aimee Oki winning 9-7 while Suhajda/Hasegawa fought hard but dropped their set 8-5.
Both teams won’t resume play until the week of Feb. 13 on the road with the men at Air Force and the women at Colorado St.