The Northern Arizona University men's tennis team clinched a doubles point for the first time in three tries this season and, coupled with strong singles play, the Lumberjacks earned their first victory of the season.
NAU won two of the three doubles matches along with four singles wins to defeat UC Riverside 5-2 Sunday afternoon. The win was the Lumberjacks second-consecutive victory in as many years against the Highlanders following last year's 4-3 win over UCR.
"We needed this, we needed to respond and compete a lot harder (Sunday) and we did that," director of tennis Kim Bruno said. "To beat a California team on their home court says a lot. We're proud of this win, and we're going to take this with us a long way."
After losing the No. 1 doubles match, NAU got a clutch win at No. 2 when sophomore Dominic Bermudez and junior Robert Martin defeated UCR's Kevin Griffin and Jimmy Roberts, 8-3. The doubles point was decided by the No. 3 match where junior Patrick Schimmelbauer, and senior Ben Lantz won their second match of the weekend, 8-4.
Taking the edge gained from winning the doubles point, the Lumberjacks went on to take a 3-0 advantage in the match by virtue of singles wins from Lantz and junior Shaun Waters at No. 6 and No. 4. The Highlanders kept their hopes alive with a win at No. 2, but Martin clinched the match for NAU with a three-set victory at No. 5 over Simon Peters, 6-0, 3-6, 6-2.
The two teams split the final two matches at No. 3 and No. 1 with Bermudez defeating Austin Andres at the No. 3 position despite losing the first set, 2-6, 6-3, 7-5, for the final Lumberjack victory of the afternoon.
In addition to the Schimmelbauer and Lantz's doubles victory, Waters' singles win Sunday was also his second-straight after winning at No. 4 on Saturday against Vanguard.
"Shaun is finding his rhythm," Bruno said. "He's finding his game a little more and he's proved to be the better player in both of his matches this weekend for sure."
Following their weekend split, the Lumberjacks have this week off before resuming competition with a pair of matches in the state of Colorado beginning with their Big Sky opener against Northern Colorado on Feb. 11.
EDITOR'S NOTE: The NAU Sports Information Department contributed to this story.
