This past Saturday against Lake Forest College and Carthage College the Warhawks ended up going 6-0 in singles against both schools, as well as 2-1 on the doubles side. Resulting in total scores of 8-1 over both Lake Forest and Carthage College.

“It was great to see that we swept all the singles because as a team we thought we needed to work on our singles play,” head coach Frank Barnes said. “For the last two weeks our main focus has been to work on consistency, mental toughness and singles strategies.”
Sophomores Byron Balkin and Brian Klein led the ’Hawks in singles. Balkin won his matches 6-1, 6-2 over Ryan Kreis, and 7-6 (2), 7-5 over Jeff Lotz. Klein came out on top 6-1, 6-2 over Jerry Wang, and 6-3, 6-2 over Brian Howes.
The two doubles losses on the day came at the hands of Ryan Kreis and Anthony Warren of Lake Forest College. Kreis and Warren beat the ’Hawks’ senior Erik Scanlan and sophomore Kevin Friend 9-8 (2).
The loss against Carthage College came against Jeff Lotz and Daneric Hazelman. Lotz and Hazelman beat the ’Hawks’ duo of Balkin and Mitch Osborne 8-6.
“After not being in the lineup last year, I’ve gotten experience this year against more experienced players,” Klein said. “Overall it was a good day for me. I played well.”
Balkin, the ’Hawks No. 1 singles player, rarely gets an easy match since he plays the top singles player of each school. Barnes was proud of how Balkin played Saturday.
“It was nice to see him get two wins over two top regionally ranked players,” Barnes said. “He’s had a couple losses earlier in the season and we wanted him to work hard the last couple weeks, which he did.”
Balkin also thought he played pretty well Saturday, given all the singles practice the team has been putting in.
“I’m realizing more and more that the better players tend to be more consistent throughout a whole match,” Balkin said. “Even though there are good players, sometimes they don’t know how to win. That’s what I’ve been realizing, is that sometimes it just takes putting one more ball in the court to win the match.”
The ’Hawks are now 8-3 in dual matches this season. The team has won its last three matches 8-1 dating back to February 25th.
The next test for the ’Hawks comes at noon Saturday against UW-Madison at the Nielson Tennis Stadium in Madison.