Oct. 4, 2008

Muncie, Ind. - The Northern Illinois men's tennis team finished day two of the Ball State Invitational with freshman Ross VanderPloeg (Holland, Mich./Ottawa) winning a pair of matches to advance to the Flight D singles finals tomorrow.

Vanderploeg defeated Mike Koscielski (Dayton), 6-2, 7-6 (6) in his quarterfinal match and then beat Miceh LeMoine (Illinois State), 6-0, 6-2, to advance to tomorrow's finals match against Duquesne's Gustavo Villares.

"Today was another step in a positive direction for our program," said NIU head coach Pawel Gajdzik. "You could look around the facility and see a lot of Huskies competing late into the second day of the tournament. We had a few hard fought matches that didn't go our way that were decided by a few points in the third set super-breaker. The guys put themselves in a good position to win and if we would convert on the chances we had, we would have more guys playing in tomorrow's finals.

"Overall though, it was another great day to be a Huskie tennis player," Gajdzik said.

In other singles action for NIU, sophomore Matt Hansen (Topeka, Kan./Miami Online (Fla.)) won his Flight A quarterfinal match over Illinois State's Timon Reichelt, 3-6, 6-4, 1-0 (5), but then lost in the semifinals to Pjotrs Nacajevs (Detroit Mercy), 3-6, 4-6.

Junior Javier Bernabe (Segovia, Spain/IES Mariano Quintanilla) was defeated by Paul Foley (Ball State), 6-7 (5), 7-6 (6), 0-1 (7), in the Flight B quarterfinals. Senior Alfonso Monroy (Mexico City, Mexico/Colegio Aleman) also lost his quarterfinals match in Flight C to IPFW's Luis Maselli, 6-7 (5), 7-5, 0-1 (5).

In doubles competition, the Huskies had the combo of Hansen/Vanderploeg advance to the quarterfinals after beating Indiana State's Lorenzo Lig/Jon Sigurdsson, 8-4. However, in their quarterfinals match they lost to Filip Mijljevic/Reichelt (Illinois State), 5-8.

Also advancing to the doubles quarterfinals was the NIU combo of Monroy/Bernabe as they were victorious against Ball State's Derek Carpenter/Thomas Dave, 9-7. Similar to Hansen/Vanderploeg, they also dropped their quarterfinals match, losing to Richard Canelaas/Anthony Palmenter (IPFW), 5-8.