In their first action since before Spring Break, the NIU men’s tennis team served up a pair of road losses this weekend.

The Huskies lost to Illinois State Saturday, 5-2, and Marquette Sunday, 7-0. The pair of losses puts NIU on a three-match skid after a four-match winning streak, moving its record to 4-6.

Missed opportunities were the Huskies’ undoing Saturday against ISU as the Redbirds won the doubles point as well as three separate three-set matches in singles competition.

“We lost a very competitive match today, and the story really was us not taking advantage of our opportunities, both in singles and doubles,” said Pawel Gajdzik, NIU men’s tennis head coach. “We certainly learned a lot today, having three of our singles matches extend to three-sets. That experience should serve us well the rest of the season.”

The men had a quick turnaround, travelling to Marquette the next day, where they made the switch from an outdoor venue to play inside. This switch was one of the reasons NIU was unable to win a single match Sunday, despite stretching another three matches to a third set.

“The difficulty we faced today was transitioning from playing outdoors yesterday to going back to indoor tennis today,” Gajdzik said. “We need to get better at closing out individual matches.”

The women had more success, as they opened up MAC play this weekend, facing Ball State Friday and preseason MAC favorite Miami (Ohio) on Saturday.

The Huskies got a win to open up MAC play against Ball State, taking a decisive doubles point to take the match, 4-3. The win ended a three-match losing streak for the Huskies.

“We really battled today and got a nice win to start out MAC play,” said NIU women’s tennis head coach Ryun Ferrell. “The doubles point proved to be huge, and that’s really encouraging. We’ve adjusted well in doubles in the last couple of weeks, and it shows how important it is in a conference match.”

NIU’s luck would run out in its match against the preseason favorite RedHawks with a 6-1 loss.

The Huskies dropped the doubles point for the first time in their past three matches, moving their record to 5-8 this season.

“It was a rough day for us on the scoreboard, but the bottom line is that we lost to a better and more experienced team in Miami (Ohio),” Ferrell said. “Overall I’m pleased with how we played this weekend. We were able to get our first win over Ball State in a number of years, and we competed hard today.”

The women will continue their current road trip next weekend when they will travel to take on Buffalo and Akron.

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