Nebraska Defeats Michigan 4-0 at Home

Lincoln, Neb. - The Nebraska men's tennis team took on the Michigan Wolverines in home play resulting in a win of 4-0 and a great defeat over a talented Big Ten team. The Huskers continue on their season with an overall record of 9-7 and a 2-2 mark in the Big Ten. Next weekend, the Huskers will take on the Indiana Hoosiers on Fri. April, 3 at 3 p.m. in Bloomington, Ind. and Purdue on Sun. April 5 at 1 p.m. in West Lafayette, Ind.

The Huskers started competition off strong in competitive doubles play. The team showed one of their best performances so far this season starting with a win at No. 1 doubles where Dusty Boyer and Bradford Zitsch took on the duo Alex Petrone and Michael Zhu. Boyer and Zitsch worked excellently together in an amazing match and stole the win over the Wolverines going 8-3. At No. 2, Scott Elsass and Linus Erhart competed against Alex Knight and Runhao Hua going 8-4. Both Erhart and Elsass made some flawless shots and worked hard together to take the win. Andrew Dzulynsky and Marc Herrmann competed at No. 3 against Tyler Gardiner and Davis Crocker but did not finish their match. 

 "It was a great college match," said Head Coach Kerry McDermott. "We were fortunate to play really great doubles for the first time all season. Honestly we probably played our best doubles all year against a good Michigan doubles team."

 With the advantage of the doubles point, the Huskers kicked off singles play with a win at No. 3 by Linus Erhart over Michigan's Runhao Hua. The two began with a close first set where Erhart went 7-5 over Hua and finished the match strong with a 6-3 win in the second set.

At No. 2, Marc Herrmann had a tight match where he began with a win over Michael Zhu in the first set going 6-4. In the second set however, Herrmann hit a rough patch where he lost 2-6 but came back in the third where he powered through and put down a 6-2 mark ultimately winning his match and putting the Huskers at 3-0.

Wrapping up competition, Dusty Boyer and Alex Petrone competed in an incredibly tight match at No. 1. In the first set, the two battled it out in a tie breaker ultimately resulting in a win for Boyer going 7-6(4). Boyer started off the second set pretty strong but Petrone crept back up putting the two back at another tie breaker. In a 6-6 score in the tiebreaker, Boyer pushed through the final point and won the second set 7-6(6) winning his match and giving the Huskers the W. Boyer played an incredibly competitive match against a talented Petrone where Dusty also won several points with a perfect serve against his competitor. 

Andrew Dzulynsky and Alex Knight began their match at No. 4 but did not finish. 

"Going into singles, since we only had four courts we had to put our top four on," said Coach McDermott. "We knew it was going to be a battle from the start but to see our top three guys all win and to clench the match for us, that's huge for our team. Our guys have been putting in a lot of work and we've been beliving in them. We haven't had great results up until this point but today's match finally paid off as far as all of the hard work. This is big for the program to beat both Michigan and Michigan State in the same weekend. We have some momentum now and we plan to use that in the next week and get after Indiana and Purdue."

Nebraska - 4

Michigan - 0

 

Singles 

No. 1 - Dusty Boyer (NEB) def. Alex Petrone (MICH) 7-6(4), 7-6(6)

No. 2 - Marc Herrmann (NEB) def. Michael Zhu (MICH) 6-4, 2-6, 6-2

No. 3 - Linus Erhart (NEB) def. Runhao Hua (MICH) 7-5, 6-3

No. 4 - Andrew Dzulynsky (NEB) vs. Alex Knight (MICH) dnf

Order of finish: 3,2,1

 

Doubles 

No. 1 - Dusty Boyer/Bradford Zitsch (NEB) def. Alex Petrone/Michael Zhu (MICH) 8-3

No. 2 - Scott Elsass/Linus Erhart (NEB) def. Alex Knight/Runhao Hua (MICH) 8-4

No. 3 - Andrew Dzulynsky/Marc Herrmann (NEB) vs. Tyler Gardiner/Davis Crocker (MICH) dnf

Order of finish: 1,2