Carroll Summary | WLU Summary | GameDay Preview

NEW BERLIN, Wis. — A year ago, the Saint Mary's University men's tennis team needed to rally from a 4-3 deficit to knock off Carroll 5-4 in the teams' nonconference match.

And SMU coach Jeff Halberg expected nothing less than a nail-biting battle when the two teams squared off again Saturday morning.

The Cardinals and Pioneers didn't disappoint.

SMU picked up a pair of doubles wins and straight-set singles victories at Nos. 2, 3 and 6 in dropping Carroll by that same 5-4 final at the Moorland Tennis Center.

The Cardinals made things a little easier in their second match of the day, as SMU cruised to a 7-2 over Wisconsin Lutheran to run their season-opening winning streak to four in a row.

"We knew coming into the Carroll match that it was going to be a battle," said Halberg, whose team improved to 4-0 with its two wins on Saturday. "It was an excellent match all the way around — we came up with the big points when we needed them.

"I thought we carried the momentum of the Carroll match into our match against Wisconsin Lutheran," Halberg said. "It was a great day of tennis for the Cardinals."

The doubles teams of Gavin Smith (White Bear Lake, Minn.)-Andrew Johnson (Rochester, Minn.) and Blake Olmscheid (Farmington, Minn.)-Warren Lawrenz (Rochester, Minn.) got the Cardinals out to a 2-1 lead with 8-4 and 8-5 wins, respectively.

Smith and Lawrenz, along with Collin Kaczorowski (Suamico, Wis.) completed the win with straight-set wins in singles play.

Against Wisconsin Lutheran, SMU swept the three doubles matches, and got singles wins from Kaczorowski, Smith, Nick Kasel (Minneapolis, Minn.) and Garen Merritt (Sioux City, Iowa).

SMU (4-0 overall) closes out its hectic three-day Wisconsin run on Sunday, traveling to the Four Seasons Tennis Center in Green Bay, Wis., for a 9 a.m. nonconference match against St. Norbert.