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Baylor tennis team shuts down A&M men

By RICHARD CROOME
Eagle Sports Writer

WACO - The Baylor men's tennis team showed why it's ranked fourth nationally and now 26-3 this season.

The Bears ousted Texas A&M 4-0 in the second round of the NCAA Men's Tennis Championships at the Baylor Tennis Center to earn a sixth straight berth into the Sweet 16.

"You've got to give credit to Baylor. They played good, and they were up for the mach," first year Texas A&M coach Steve Denton. "I thought it was going to be a really close match today. I felt good going in, but Baylor took it to us."

A&M won only one set, Conor Pollock's 6-4 opener at No. 2 singles against Michal Kotka, who bounced back to even the match just before the Bears closed it out on court No. 4.

"I thought we battled pretty hard today," Denton said "We had chances in the doubles and didn't come through there, and then they jumped on us early in the singles and got ahead on five courts."

It was the first time this season the Aggies (15-12) had been blanked.

"We were playing behind the whole match, but we hung in there in a couple of matches where we were still on the line," Denton said. "We had to win a second set there to prolong it, but we couldn't quite do it."

Baylor got the first point with 8-5 and 8-6 doubles victories on the first two lines.

The Bears then opened singles by winning two of the first sets 6-1 and two more 6-2.

Pollock won his first set, and A&M's Matt Bain forced a tiebreaker on the fifth line but lost 7-3 in the tiebreaker.

A&M put up more of a fight in the second sets, led by Jerry Makowski. A&M's All-American top-liner came from love-40 down on his serve at 3-4, then saved two match points on his serve before breaking 19th-ranked Lars Poerschke.

Makowski prolonged his match long enough for Baylor's Matija Zgaga to close out the match with a 6-2, 7-5 win over Brad Williams on the fourth line.

Baylor's other two points came at Nos. 3 and 6 singles. Denes Lukacs beat senior John Nallon 6-1, 6-3 on the sixth line before Matt Brown topped Luka Ocvirk 6-2, 6-2 on the third.

It was A&M's second straight second-round loss in the NCAA Championships. The Aggies reached the Sweet 16 the previous six years.

"We have no one to blame but ourselves for not taking care of business and not being one of the top 16 teams in the country," Denton said. "We kind of got what we deserved. We had to play in one of the toughest regions in the country even though it was close by.

"Hopefully next year we'll do better job in the season. I'm excited about our prospects with five of our top six singles players back, so one of our goals will be to host a regional."

Baylor will face Alabama in the Sweet 16. The Crimson Tide beat 14th-ranked Duke 4-3 in Durham, N.C., on Saturday.