Sacramento State’s men’s tennis team had a busy weekend with matches scheduled on Friday, Saturday and Sunday this past week. Sunday’s match at Santa Clara was postponed due to inclement weather, so the Hornets were involved in just two matches.

On Friday the Hornets took on conference opponent Weber State at Rio Del Oro Country Club. This one was all Sac State, as they took every point, including all three doubles matches to earn the 7-0 victory. Jonathan Labella said that the team did what it should have done against Weber State. “I expected us to beat Weber State even before the match,” Labella said. “The players did what they were supposed to do.”

On Saturday a rematch with archrival UC Davis was the challenge. Much like the first meeting between the teams, the Aggies were able to come away with the 4-3 victory, earning 2.5 more points for Davis in the Causeway Cup. Sac State now holds an ever-shrinking lead in the cup standings by a total of 45.00-30.00.

The Aggies took two of the three doubles matches before closing out with the last three points of the day to take the hard fought match. Junaid Hossain and Gabriel Loredo suffered just their second loss of the season in doubles as they lost to Davis’ Justin Garcia and Michael Chin 8-4. Warwick Foy and Ramon Perez also lost, falling to Jordan Combs and Jayce Fitch 8-4. Hague Van Dillen and Paul Komorniczak salvaged a victory for the Hornets with an 8-5 victory over Casey and Kyle McMakin.

It was the doubles play by Davis that made the difference according to Van Dillen. “We should have won the doubles point,” Van Dillen said. “Unfortunately we lost it and that ended up basically being the decider.”

The Hornets took the top three singles matches to get their three points as Loredo, Hossain and Foy won their matches. However, it was the bottom of the singles match list that ultimately spelled doom for the Hornets. All six singles matches were decided in straight sets, including the pivotal losses for Van Dillen, Perez and Thomas Morton. Foy saw some fatal flaws in the singles matches as well. “I think we should have used different strategies in some of the singles matches,” Foy said. “We should have tried harder to outsmart our opponents.”

As was the case the first time the teams played it may have been nerves that played a role in the loss for Sac State. “Some of the guys played well in practice,” Labella said. “But when it came to the match their level of play dropped. It shows the lack of experience that some of the players have.”The loss pulled the Hornets back to 4-4 on the season. Sac State currently sits atop the Big Sky standings with a 2-0 record in conference.

Benn Hodapp can be reached at [email protected]