Oct. 17, 2008

Columbus, Ohio - The Northern Illinois men's tennis team finished competition at the ITA Regionals on Friday as the four Huskies involved learned from their first experience in the regional tournament.

"It was the first time for all of our guys to play in the ITA Regionals," said NIU head coach Pawel Gajdzik. "We are a young team, but we played hard and fought in a couple of close matches. It was a good experience that we can learn from."

In Thursday's singles qualifying round, sophomore Matt Hansen (Topeka, Kan./Miami Online (Fla.)) topped Michael Kathary (Youngstown State), 2-6, 6-0, 6-4, to advance to the second round where he dropped his match against Xavier's Ra'ees Ismail, 3-6, 4-6. The only other Huskie in singles competition was junior Javier Bernabe (Segovia, Spain/IES Mariano Quintanilla) and he lost to Santiago Gruter (Indiana), 1-6, 0-6, in the first round.

In Friday's double action, Hansen and freshman teammate Ross VanderPloeg (Holland, Mich./West Ottawa) dropped the match in the main draw, 6-8, to Minnesota's Sikora/Wernet. However, Bernabe and senior Alfonso Monroy (Mexico City, Mexico/Colegio Aleman) won their first round match, defeating IPFW's Kuschke/Cabrini, 8-5. The combo then faced Notre Dame's Helgeson/Havens in the second round and suffered a 1-8 loss.

"Our guys realize that we are really close to catching up to other teams that are very good in our region," Gajdzik said. "We faced some of the better players in our region and found out that we can compete with them. It was a good step in a positive direction.

"We have a week before our last fall tournament in Marquette and we will use this experience to get better."

NIU finishes its fall competition as the Huskies travel to Milwaukee, Wisconsin on October 24 to participate in the Marquette Fall Invitational.