Nebraska Ends Stay at Big Ten Tournament

Urbana, Ill. - The Nebraska men's tennis team ended its stay at the Big Ten Championship with a 4-0 loss to No. 12 Ohio State in the quarterfinals on Friday.

Ohio State took the early lead with wins at the No. 1 and No. 2 positions to claim the doubles point. Nebraska's top tandem of Dusty Boyer and Bradford Zitsch dropped an 8-4 decision to OSU's Kevin Metka and Ralf Steinbach, who entered the match ranked No. 4 nationally.

At the No. 2 doubles position, NU's Scott Elsass and Linus Erhart suffered an 8-2 setback to Ohio State's Herkko Pollanen and Mikal Torpegaard. 

Metka opened the scoring in singles play for the Buckeyes with a 6-0, 6-1 win over Nebraska's Chris Hobgarski. OSU then took a 3-0 lead with Steinbach's 6-3, 6-2 win over Zitsch. 

Ohio State secured the win with Hunter Callahan's 6-2, 6-3 win over Andrew Dzulynsky.

Although Ohio State secured the win, the Huskers got strong efforts at the top of the lineup.

Boyer, who entered the tournament ranked 111th nationally, battled to a 7-6 (5) first-set win over Ohio State's No. 49 Chris Diaz. Boyer trailed 0-1 early in the second set before the match was halted by OSU's team win.

At No. 2 singles, Nebraska's Erhart won his first set against OSU's No. 47 Mikal Torpegaard, 7-6 (6) and was even at 1-1 in the second set before play was stopped.

"We played very well in the top of the lineup," Nebraska Coach Kerry McDermott said. "At No. 1, Dusty Boyer had won the first set and Linus (Erhart) had also won his first set at No. 2. Marc lost a tough first set at No. 3 going 5-7 when the match got taken with Ohio State winning easily at No. 4, 5, and 6. Our priorities now are to improve upon where we left off from this match and strengthen the bottom of our lineup. Our guys will need to play lots of matches this summer."

Nebraska finished its 2015 season with an 11-14 overall record that included a 3-8 Big Ten regular-season mark. The Huskers advanced to the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals with a first-round victory over Michigan State.

Ohio State - 4
Nebraska - 0

Singles  

No. 1 - No. 111 Dusty Boyer (NEB) vs. No. 49 Chris Diaz (OSU) 7-6 (5), 0-1 dnf

No. 2 - Linus Erhart (NEB) 7-6 (6), 1-1 dnf vs. No. 47 Mikal Torpegaard (OSU)

No. 3 - Herkko Pollanen (OSU) vs. Marc Herrmann (NEB) 7-5, 1-0 dnf

No. 4 - Hunter Callahan (OSU) def. Andrew Dzulynsky (NEB) 7-5, 1-0 dnf

No. 5 - Kevin Metka (OSU) def. Chris Hobgarski (NEB) 6-0, 6-1

No. 6 - No. 97 Ralf Steinbach (OSU) def. Bradford Zitsch (NEB) 6-2, 6-3

 

Doubles 

No. 1 - No. 4 Kevin Metka/Ralf Steinbach (OSU) def. Dusty Boyer/Bradford Ztisch (NEB) 8-4

No. 2 - Herkko Pollanen/Mikal Torpegaard (OSU) def. Scott Elsass/Linus Erhart (NEB) 8-2

No. 3 - No. 85 Hunter Callahan/Chris Diaz (OSU) vs. Marc Herrmann/Chris Hobgarski (NEB) 5-4 dnf