The way men's tennis coach Russ Crispell saw it, "The Easter bunny came early."
It certainly appeared that way over the holiday weekend as Bulls tennis swept their matches and brought their current winning streak to three games.
Buffalo started off last Friday with a victory over Northern Illinois, 4-3, which was the first win for the team in Mid-American Conference play.
"We played the match of our lives. They were a team that all the MAC coaches said would finish higher than us in the standings. We beat them last year and wanted to prove that it wasn't a fluke," Crispell said.
The Bulls (11-7, 2-3 MAC) were down in the early goings of the match, but were able to rally from a 3-1 deficit in the singles matches to pull off the victory.
The first points of the match came in doubles play when the No. 2 team came back to win 9-7 after being down 4-1 early. The team, comprised of sophomore Nikesh Singh Panthlia and senior Matt Kennedy, managed to win eight of the final 11 games of the match to defeat Northern Illinois (4-11, 1-2 MAC) players Alfonso Monroy and David Katz.
"Those guys are comeback kids. They don't ever want to lose, and those are my kind of student athletes. They did what it took," Crispell said.
Singh Panthlia and Kennedy weren't the only players that had strong outings against the Huskies.
In the No. 3 doubles match, juniors Mike Rockman and Albert Alant pulled off another important victory, 8-4. When it came time for the singles matches, the Bulls needed just three victories to pull off the upset.
Northern Illinois was up 3-1 when freshman Octavian Stane edged the team closer by winning his No. 4 match against David Katz. Alant then tied the score 3-3 when he won the final two sets of his match.
Rockman made the victory official when he defeated Brian Livingston. With the win, Rockman is now tied for second place in Bulls tennis all-time singles victories with 64, just behind the current women's assistant coach Fery Kasiman.
Although the team may not have played as strongly as they think they are capable of, Crispell was proud of the way his players fought to win.
"You may not always play your best, but our guys just went out there and found ways to win," he said.
After the victory over NIU, the Bulls traveled to Fort Wayne, Ind., to compete in their final MAC conference match against Indiana Perdue Fort Wayne (11-15, 0-5 MAC), where the Bulls won, 5-2
This was the team's third straight win.
Again, it was the doubles team of Kennedy and Singh Panthlia that had the come-from-behind victory. Down 7-6 with IPFW serving for the match, the two won the final three games for a 9-7 win.
The other two doubles matches split as junior Yules Hadisubroto and Stane cruised in the No. 1 match to defeat IPFW's Landy Nzudie and Nabil Mourad Filho, 8-3 and the tandem of Rockman and Alant fell to Daniel Jackson and Nathan Jones, 8-5.
In singles matches, the Bulls won four of six. Rockman won quickly over Nzudie 6-2, 6-4. This gave him his 65th victory and placed him alone in second place on the victories all-time list. Singh Panthlia defeated his opponent in three sets, 6-3, 4-6, and 6-1. After the defeat of Hadisubroto by IPFW's Carlos Gonzalez, Stane and Kennedy won their matches to seal the deal.
Crispell was excited about his team's momentum heading into the MAC tournament.
"Oh, they were huge," he said about the two victories. "In my opinion, we're ready. We have the positive momentum. I think that the team that is hot going into the MAC championships is going to be the one that wins it."
The Bulls are scheduled to finish out their season this Friday against Binghamton. However, possible weather problems have made the Bulls doubtful that the match will take place, so they have turned their focus on the MAC championships. The tournament will begin on Thursday, April 27 in Toledo, Ohio.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
