WINONA, Minn. — Last Saturday, the Saint Mary's University men's tennis team enjoyed the thrill of a 5-4 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference victory, as the Cardinals got a three-set, come-from-behind victory from
Sam Puff (Eden Prairie, Minn.) at No. 5 singles to beat the Oles.
Saturday afternoon, the Cardinals were at it again, tied with Saint John's 4-4 with Puff's No. 5 singles match remaining to be played.
This time around, however, Puff and the Cardinals experienced the agony of a 5-4 conference defeat, as Puff again rallied from one set down with a second-set victory, but ran out of gas in the third set, falling to the Johnnies' Luke Odegard.
“It was a tough loss, the guys battled their hearts out,” said SMU coach
Jeff Halberg. “Sam played a great match at No. 5 singles, but (Odegard) played just a little better.
“This was a great match between two evenly matched teams,” Halberg added. “A break here or there, and we easily could have ended up with a 5-4 win, rather than a 5-4 loss.”
The Cardinals jumped out to a 2-1 lead after the three doubles matches, but Saint John's won three of the first five singles matches to pull even, 4-4, with Puff's match remaining. The Cardinals freshman bounced back from a 6-4 loss in the opening set with a 7-6 victory, but Odegard started fast in the third and final set and never looked back in winning 10-1.
#Pawel Szczepkowski (Opolskie, Poland) and Robert Steingraeber (La Crosse, Wis.) collected singles wins for the Cardinals — Steingraeber's a three-set, 6-2, 4-6, 10-7 triumph at No. 4 — while SMU also got doubles wins from
Michael Lunka (Eagan, Minn.)-Steingraeber at No. 1, and Puff-
Justin Loeffler (Winona, Minn.) at No. 3.
Match Summary vs. Saint John's
