Julian Ruffin (Sr.)
Julian Ruffin (Sr.)

This week was one of mixed feelings for the tennis team as they played three games back to back with some surprising and other unsurprising performances. Mattias Johansson seems to be having a tough time adjusting to the team as the losses keep piling on, however they did take one win away this week.  Kicking off their first game was on Saturday against Eastern Washington State. The game ended with an uneventful score of 6-1 against the Highlanders where Hans Baumstark, notably was the only one with a victory against Washington.

It was a similar story against Idaho the following day. The Highlanders went in facing a team that was picked to finish 2nd in the Big Sky conference in the preseason poll, so it wasn’t a surprise when the game ended in a landslide defeat of 0-7.

 
However, it was a huge surprise for the team, when they faced Lewis-Clark College right after and decided to make a change in their efforts. The team came back with a miraculous victory of 4-3 so this puts their overall record currently at 1-5. The match was one full of intensity as it was a constant back and forth between the two teams. UCR’s Calvin Ngo was their last hope as his match was set to be the tiebreaker after the score was 3-3. Early on, Ngo trailed behind at 5-3, leaving the Highlanders to only hope that they could comeback. Ngo responded gracefully as he proceeded to win the next four straight sets, taking the victory. Hopefully the team can take this win and continue the momentum next week as there’s no time to celebrate. Coach Johansson is looking to reinvent the team and if they can perform as well as they did against Lewis-Clark, then it’s possible for the team to overcome their disappointing record thus far.