Huskers Fall to Baylor at Big 12 Championships

College Station, Texas - The Nebraska men's tennis team lost to the Baylor Bears 4-0 on Friday morning at the Big 12 Championships in College Station, Texas. The loss ends the season for the Huskers, who finished the year with a 10-16 record.

Despite the 4-0 final score, the Huskers were very competitive in the morning's match, much more than when they lost to Baylor 7-0 last Friday in Waco, Texas. The Huskers had a lead at No. 3 singles, were in the third set of No. 1 singles and were battling in No. 2 singles when the match was decided after Baylor's Attila Bucko clinched the match for Baylor with a 6-4, 7-6 (5) victory over Renato Melo at No. 5 singles.

After winning the doubles point, Baylor took the first three completed singles matches, at Nos. 4, 5 and 6, and the remaining singles matches weren't finished. At No. 1 singles, Calin Paar won the first set and was in the middle of the third set with the nation's eighth-ranked player, Lars Poerschke. David Bendheim at No. 2 singles lost a first-set tiebreaker and was tied 2-2 in the second set with the Denes Lukacs, the 11th-ranked player in the nation. At No. 3 singles, Francois Van Impe won the first set and was tied 4-4 in the second when the match was called.

“Baylor played a pretty good match,” said Head Coach Kerry McDermott. “We were pretty competitive in singles play, especially at the 1, 2, 3 and 5 spots. We had some huge opportunities there. We had a much more competitive match than when we played them a week ago, and that's what we need to see next year.”

Friday's match was the final one for Husker seniors Karl Jones and Mark Tate, who have both been solid contributors to the Husker program throughout their careers. Jones, who was injured all last summer and had to work just to get back to full strength for the spring season, finished the season with a 3-7 singles record and a 4-3 doubles record. Tate had a 4-9 singles record and a 1-7 doubles record for the year, and finished his career with 66 combined singles and doubles wins.

The Huskers will still return plenty of talent next season, as five of their top six players are scheduled to return to join two talented newcomers. McDermott thinks that if his team can put in the effort it did today against Baylor throughout the course of next season, they can be successful.

“If we continue to show the effort we had today next year, then good things are going to happen,” McDermott said. “I thought we set the tone today for next year's team.”

Results
Baylor 4, Nebraska 0

Doubles
No. 1 Bendheim/Paar (NU) vs. Galic/Lukacs (BU), DNF
No. 2 Poerschke/Bucko (BU) def. Stahmer/Van Impe (NU), 8-2
No. 3 Mueller/Rux (BU) def. Schneider/Tate (NU), 8-1

Singles
No. 1 Calin Paar (NU) vs. Lars Poerschke (BU), DNF
No. 2 David Bendheim (NU) vs. Denes Lukacs (BU), DNF
No. 3 Francois Van Impe (NU) vs. David Galic (BU), DNF
No. 4 Dominik Mueller (BU) def. Hendrik Stahmer (NU), 6-1, 6-0
No. 5 Atilla Bucko (BU) def. Renato Melo (NU), 6-4, 7-6 (6)
No. 6 Jordan Rux (BU) def. Mark Tate (NU), 6-2, 6-2