By Michael Haag | Sports Editor
No. 14 Baylor men’s tennis head coach Michael Woodson said hosting the top-ranked team in the country was something his squad “needed.”
The Bears got off to a hot start by snagging the doubles point, but No. 1 Ohio State dominated singles play en route to a 4-1 victory on Wednesday night in the Hawkins Indoor Tennis Center in front of a record-breaking crowd of 472 fans.
“We’ve had a ton of success so far this year, and we’ve shown that we can be a top-10 team,” Woodson said. “We were looking around [thinking], ‘We’re not losing this match based on skill. We’re losing this match based on experience.’ And you can’t skip steps. We need this type of experience.
“And sure it would be really nice to go out and win this match. But as a coach, you want to see our guys learn and grow and develop.”
The Buckeyes (15-0) were the third top-ranked foe in the last 10 years to play the Bears in Waco. With the win, Ohio State remains the only undefeated team in the ITA Top-25 rankings. Wednesday’s contest also marked the sixth time the Bears have faced a No. 1 team under Woodson, who’s in his third year as head coach.
Baylor won its ninth-straight doubles point to take an early 1-0 lead, also marking Ohio State’s fifth time losing the doubles point in the last seven matches.
Courts two and three got the job done for the Bears, as junior Oskar Brostrom Poulsen and senior Christopher Frantzen made quick work of their opponents on Court Three with a 6-1 win. The Buckeyes’ No. 3 doubles pairing of fifth-year senior Robert Cash and senior JJ Tracy responded with a 6-1 win over senior Tadeas Paroulek and sophomore Zsombor Velcz to level the count.
Freshman Devin Badenhorst and sophomore Luc Koenig clinched the point for Baylor on Court Two by a score of 6-3. Badenhorst and Koenig won the final four games of the doubles matchup and served up several aces as well.
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Woodson said Badenhorst and Koenig, who are tied for the team lead with seven doubles wins, still haven’t reached their full potential as partners.
“But they’re so close and they’ve known each other for so long that they know what to say to each other when, and they trust each other to back up their play and to pick them up when they need a little bit of a boost,” Woodson said. “And today it was Luc firing right away.”
Ohio State raced out first-set victories on all six courts following its doubles-point loss. Tracy, the No. 3-ranked singles player in the nation, leveled the overall count 1-1 after he dusted Brostrom Poulsen 6-2, 6-2.
Mere moments later, No. 111 Cash topped Koenig by the same line 6-2, 6-2. The Buckeyes’ third singles point came when No. 27 fifth-year senior Justin Boulais took care of No. 83 Velcz 6-4, 6-2.
The silencer came on Court Four, as No. 12 redshirt sophomore Jack Anthrop bested freshman Louis Bowden 6-2, 6-2. Ohio State clinched the 4-1 match victory with Anthrop’s win. No. 75 Badenhorst’s match with No. 26 fifth-year senior Cannon Kingsley was left unfinished, but Badenhorst forced another game at 5-5 in the second set after dropping the first set.
Junior Marko Miladinović also had his match against the No. 100 player in the country stopped in the second set, and he held a 5-4 lead in the second set despite dropping the first one 6-4.
Woodson said the Bears let the Buckeyes back into the match too quickly and that there wasn’t a skill gap between the sides on Wednesday.
“I think their experience really showed in that I didn’t see them playing a lot better than us, but I saw them playing the big points a little bit more poised than we did,” Woodson said. “And they were able to get excited from that and kind of run away with it.”
Frantzen said the record-breaking crowd played a huge role in the team winning the doubles point and getting out to a hot start.
“That’s something special at Baylor,” Frantzen said. “Like me as a senior, of course I don’t want to say like I expect it, but at some point you do. … It’s unbelievable at Baylor what we have here, especially the tennis culture.”
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Baylor gets back on the road quickly, as it will face No. 19 Illinois at 6 p.m. on Friday at the Atkins Tennis Center in Urbana-Champaign, Ill.
