Looking to continue to improve on its doubles play, the Penn State men's tennis team got just what it needed this weekend at the Army Invitational in West Point, N.Y.
The Nittany Lions dominated the field of Army, Cornell and Yale, winning 26 out of 31 matches on the weekend.
"We learned a lot about ourselves," junior Brad Hunter said. "We were pretty dominant throughout the weekend, we beat up on the teams that we should have and stepped it up against teams we needed to -- it was a pretty strong effort up and down the lineup."
The Lions swept Cornell 7-0 on Saturday, taking all three doubles matches and then took over the singles, winning every match in straight sets. Winning matches like this are what a team as talented as the Lions should be doing, and this weekend they made sure of it.
The Lions started their tournament earlier on Saturday taking all but one of seven singles matches against host Army. During the weekend each player found himself playing up one spot higher than usual, as senior co-captain Mark Barry had the weekend off to rest and catch up academically after an individual competition the previous weekend.
After a seemingly easy opening day, the Lions faced a rematch with Yale from the Eastern College Athletic Conference Championships in September. The Bulldogs came out swinging, splitting a four-match doubles portion, but once again the Lions fell back on their singles play, taking five of seven matches, beating their Ivy-League opponents 7-4 in the mock dual match.
"They were hungry for a win -- it's tough to beat a team like that twice in a short amount of time," assistant coach Bill Potoczny said. "The guys did a nice job, when they got up on guys, to stay on top and doing that."
As if to punctuate the weekend's dominance, the Lions were able to sweep Army's doubles pairs 3-0 on the second day of competition, showing signs of improvement on an area that has been the trouble spot all season long.
The wins were a good stepping stone for the team, as Potoczny had said last week that many of the teams they would face had quality doubles players, with some being stronger than that team's singles players.
"There are definitely signs of improvement," Potoczny said. "The things I keep telling them that still need work -- this week we were making some progress."
The absence of Barry also had an impact on the doubles pairings. While Hunter and fellow junior Ryan Berger remained as a team, the other pairings were shuffled around during the weekend. Berger and Hunter went 2-1 on the weekend, with an epic 9-8 (15-13) loss in a tiebreak against Yale.
Even with unfamiliar partners the Lions were able to put together a successful weekend because they were able to play at a higher level.
"We all still dominated," Hunter said. "We showed that everyone is capable of playing against these guys -- playing at any position. We had to step up our games, and we did that."
Sophomore James Dwyer, who had been hobbled by a knee injury, was cleared to travel with the team and contributed by winning three matches.
Now the Lions must continue to step up as they will send six players to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association's Northeast Regional Championships next weekend.
