After a big win on Saturday against the College of the Holy Cross, the Boston University men’s tennis team came back down to earth yesterday.
The Terriers were walloped, 7-0, by Boston College, a team they have had little success against in recent years.
“BC had [its] way with us,” said BU coach Jeremy Taylor. “They came to play and put more balls in play than we did.”
The Eagles jumped on the Terriers early, winning the first two doubles matches to clinch the doubles point. But the Terriers were able to steal the third doubles contest, an 8-6 tiebreaker victory for sophomores Noel Moosa and Jon Mofsky.
“They were very consistent,” said sophomore John Debbink. “They hit all the right shots.”
But Boston College was just too much for the Terriers to handle in the singles department, sweeping all six of those matches. Only freshman Adam Siegal was able to take his match to a third set. Siegal won a competitive first set by tiebreaker before dropping the next two sets.
“BC was just pounding balls back at us,” Debbink said. “There was not much we could do.”
Yesterday, the Eagles were clearly an overpowering force against this young team led by a first year coach.
“It certainly wasn’t a case of a bad day,” Debbink said. “We missed a lot of shots we shouldn’t have, but it was an average day.”
The Terriers will finish the regular season at 3-10, unless a cancelled meet against the University of New Hampshire is rescheduled. Taylor admitted it has been a season of growing pains for this inexperienced squad.
“It’s pretty much a rebuilding year,” said Taylor, who inherited the squad from former coach Rob Miller, now the head coach at BC. “We’ve improved across the board from September to now. The rate of improvement could have been quicker, but we have to be realistic.”
Taylor said his players are finally getting the mental aspects of the game down, but the team is still a work in progress.
“Execution is what we lack,” he said.
But on a team where five of the six singles players are freshmen or sophomores, this team can only get better with time. However, it will be difficult for the squad to improve enough in time for the season-ending America East tournament.
“We’ll be a six or seven, or maybe even an eight seed in the tournament,” Taylor said. “So we’ll be fed to the sharks. But win, lose or draw we want to go in there fighting.”
But as Debbink points out, being a low seed has its advantages.
“We don’t feel a lot of pressure, which is a good thing,” he said. “But we’re pumped up to play, and hopefully we’ll come up with a couple of wins.”
Though the season has been a struggle at times, Taylor says he has enjoyed his first campaign as BU men’s tennis coach.
“I love it. I’m having fun,” he said. “But we have to work harder on and off the court to get where we want to be.”
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