The last time the Bowling Green tennis team met up with Michigan State, the outcome was a lot different.
The two teams didn’t compete against each other in a duel meet, but they did see each other in the Wolverine Invitational this past fall, where the Falcons won four of five matches over the Spartans.
This time around, it was the Spartans who rolled, as they took down the Falcons 7-0, giving them their first loss of the season.
“It’s disappointing,” BG head coach Penny Dean said. “But everyone played well in spots; the match scores weren’t indicative of how it went.”
That is a good thing for the Falcons.
In singles play only Andrea Meister managed to win a match but she still fell 3-6, 6-0, 6-2.
“Their courts were fast and [the Michigan State] girls had big serves,” Dean said. “We have to work on our serves and returns.”
The Falcons even had some problems with their doubles play, an area of the game they usually thrive at.
The tandem of Susie Schoenberger and Heidi Romer won their match in the top flight 8-2 but after that it was all Michigan State.
Ashley Jakupcin and Jenna Nussbaum ran into a solid Michigan State duo of Keri Thompson and Christine Bader in the second flight and lost 8-1. Then Andrea Volle and Meister couldn’t pull out their match as they fell 8-5 in the third flight.
“That was the toughest number two team we’ll see all year,” Dean said. “It was extremely tough, they had two really good servers.”
But for the Falcons, this was a learning experience.
“I still feel pretty good about the doubles,” Dean said. “We got tested more, the first flight we won and the third one we played pretty well.”
BG also knows that the loss isn’t the end of the world. While the scores may indicate the matches as being blowouts, the games were tighter than they appeared.
“They didn’t blow us out,” Dean said. “We hit five or six balls and then miss the volley.”
For BG, it was more of a problem of finishing the work they’d put in.
They will have a pair of chances to improve on this showing next weekend when they host Butler and Indiana State at the Shadow Valley tennis club in Toledo. The match against Butler starts Saturday at 1 p.m.