May 13, 2000
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The Purdue men's tennis team faced off against the No. 27 Sycamores of Indiana State, in Terre Haute, Ind., today and came up on the short end of a 4-1 loss. The Boilers, currently ranked #38 in the country, drop to 11-11 to end their season.
"ISU is a very talented team, they play with a lot of energy and enthusiasm," Purdue head coach Tim Madden said. "It was clear that they felt that they were the team that should win. They took it to us. We fought back, but I think that we dug ourselves too big a whole to climb out of in both doubles and singles."
Purdue started things off with 39th-ranked Jason Marshall taking on the Sycamores' Jonas Piibor. The junior from Dallas, Texas, last year's Big Ten singles champion, was defeated in straight sets by Piibor, 6-3, 6-3. ISU continued to have things go their way as Derek Miller and Henry Choi ended abandened at the No. 2 singles spot. Down 1-0, freshman sensation Carl McCafferty went head to head with the Sycamores' Adam Baranowski. McCaffery improved to 19-15 on the year, and 5-4 in the No. 3 spot with the Boilers' lone point. Andrew Wakefield followed the win with an abandoned match against ISU's Stefan Hirn. Scott Mayer and Lath Al-Agba made things interesting in the final two singles matches, taking their ISU counterparts to three sets. Mayer won the second set, 6-1, against Gareth Keating before falling 6-2, 1-6, 6-2. Al-Agba also took the second set, 7-5, but couldn't pull out the third set and lost, 6-1, 5-7, 6-1.
"We ended up getting a lot of matches into third sets, but only because we lost the first set and fought back in the second set," Madden said. "For this season, we were trying to get back to some basics as how we are going to play as opposed to what we are going to do, in terms of rising to the occasion in a big match. This year we focused too much on what the match was about instead of how we were going to play it. We got down early today, but the good thing is that we finished up by doing the basics well. We fought very hard to get back into this match."
ISU continued to have Purdue's number through doubles competition as the Sycamores took the doubles point by winning both matches. Piibor/Keating led things off with an 8-4 win over Marshall/Wakefield. Crick/Tranquada and McCafftery/Miller was abandoned, before Baranowski/Hirn took the final doubles match over Al-Agba and Mayer, 8-4.
"I truly believe that you earn your way into an elite group like this," Madden said. "It is very disappointing to lose, but I would rather be here and lose with a very young team than not be here at all. These kids should keep their chins up, they can be very proud of some bright spots in the 2000 season."