Netmen reach .500 on season play with rout of St. Bonaventure

The Penn State men's tennis team earned its second consecutive shutout with a 7-0 win over St. Bonaventure yesterday at the Penn State Tennis Center.

The Lions (5-5, 0-2 Big Ten) are now at .500 for the spring season and have won three of their last four matches. St. Bonaventure dropped to 7-5.

The most exciting match of the afternoon was No. 1 singles, where Nittany Lion Michael Carter beat J.P. Gingras 6-3, 3-6, 6-1. Gingras argued many of the line calls and seemed to let the calls bother him, yet Carter stayed composed and emerged with the victory.

"Carter stayed a little more focused," assistant coach Doug Schoenly said.

No. 2 singles player Mike Griesser continued to dominate his opposition with a 6-0, 6-1 win over St. Bonaventure's Phil Radziejewski. The sophomore improved his spring singles record to 7-2.

"I played a solid match," Griesser said. "Nothing extremely bad."

The Lions didn't know much about the Bonnies coming into the match, but that didn't seem to affect their performance.

"We knew they could be tough," Griesser said. "Gingras was pretty good."

The Lions doubles matchups, like Griesser, also continued to dominate. They won their matches 8-0, 8-1 and 8-2.

Schoenly said the Lions have shown some improvement so far this spring.

"The guys are starting to attack the ball more," Schoenly said. "We worked on that in practice."

Jeff Martini replaced sophomore Lee Hecht, who was out for the second consecutive match with a shoulder injury. Martini started at No. 6 singles and No. 3 doubles and continued this season's trend of many freshman seeing action. He won his singles match 6-4, 6-0 and teamed with Griesser to win their doubles match 8-1.

"He was a little tentative at the beginning but he settled down," Schoenly said of Martini's singles performance.

Schoenly said Hecht will return to his usual positions against Pennsylvania on Saturday.