Win streak ends at 5

Defeat has not been in the Hoosier’s vocabulary since last month. No. 45 IU suffered its first loss in March yesterday when they dropped a 6-1 decision to No. 19 Louisville.

“We looked like a young team today,” IU coach Randy Bloemendaal said. “I was just disappointed by the way the guys played the entire match.”

The Hoosiers were swept across the doubles board, 8-5, in all three matches. The Cardinal’s sophomore duo of Austen and Simon Childs, ranked No. 11 nationally, defeated sophomore Santiago Gruter and freshman Jeremy Langer.

“I’m not sure if, with a young team, we got a little intimidated,” Bloemendaal said. “Our execution was very poor all day long. Louisville played the way I thought they were going to play. The way I prepared the team mentally, we needed to get ready that way and the guys knew that. We didn’t rise up to the challenge today.”

Sophomore Lachlan Ferguson couldn’t increase his number of wins over top-ranked opponents, losing to No. 40 Austen Childs 6-3, 6-1 . Gruter was also defeated by his nationally ranked opponent, No. 85 Viktor Maksimcuk.

“It’s one of those things, you’re on a match win streak and you got to learn that each and every match is its own unique opportunity, and you have to prepare for each one as well as you did the one before no matter how well you’re playing,” Bloemendaal said.

After a three-set battle, freshman Will Kendall was unable to pull out the third-set tiebreaker, losing 2-6, 6-2, 10-7. Freshman Stephen Vogl had the Hoosiers’ lone win.

“Stephen Vogl played really well,” Bloemendaal said. “That was probably the bright spot for us.”

Langer and fellow freshman Maxime Armengaud were also defeated in straight sets.

“We’ll bounce back,” Bloemendaal said. “The guys are fighters. It’s just we didn’t show it today. It’s been a long time since I saw us play at this level. It’s unfortunate because we had a lot of momentum coming into this match.”