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Men’s tennis
IU continues home unbeaten streak

Another home match, another dominating performance by the IU men’s tennis team.
The No. 50 Hoosiers cruised to a 6-1 victory over Harvard on Sunday, improving to 3-0 at the IU Tennis Center during the spring season. The team recorded two 7-0 shutouts in its other two home matches.

Junior Lachlan Ferguson returned to the singles lineup after missing four consecutive matches with an injury, but he showed little rust. The Adelaide, Australia, native knocked off Harvard’s Joshua Tchan 6-4, 6-4 at No. 4 singles and teamed with sophomore Maxime Armengaud for an 8-5 doubles victory.

Ferguson said it felt good to be back out on the court.

“It’s just fun to be out there. No one likes watching their team play,” he said. “It always helps the confidence to get the victory, help the team and move forward to next week.”

The wins didn’t come as easily for junior Santiago Gruter and freshman Josh MacTaggart.

Gruter led Alexei Chijoff-Evans 6-2, 4-1 at No. 1 singles before blowing the second set. He would respond, however, taking the third set in a tiebreak 7-6 (7-4).
MacTaggart, like Gruter, jumped on his opponent early before he began to struggle. After winning the first set 6-3, MacTaggart dropped a highly contested second stanza 5-7.

But again, resiliency saved the Hoosiers.

MacTaggart took the third set 6-3, capping it off with a floater just over the head of Harvard’s Aba Omodele-Lucien.

“Harvard was gunning for us so we ended up carrying a lot of pressure today,” said IU coach Randy Bloemendaal. “I thought that was a good victory because of how well they were playing. But I think there are things that we have to work on. I wasn’t real happy with our discipline. I wasn’t real happy with some of the little details. It was a solid win, but believe it or not, it was an ugly win for us.”

—Justin Albers


Wrestling
IU continues unbeaten streak

The IU wrestling team got exactly what it was looking for in its Big Ten finale at Michigan State on Sunday afternoon. Thanks to yet another comeback, the visiting Hoosiers (16-3, 5-3) spoiled the Spartans’ (8-8-1, 2-6) senior night with a 24-15 final.

In Angel Escobedo’s last Big Ten regular season match, the senior notched his 40th career pin at 125 pounds, getting the Hoosiers off to an early 6-0 lead.

While No. 1 Escobedo improved his record to 30-0 on the year, the team has struggled at the lighter weights in Big Ten play. Losses at 133, 141 and 149 pounds dropped the Hoosiers in a familiar hole. On the year, the Hoosiers are just 4-20 in Big Ten play at those three weight classes.

Luckily for IU, the Bloomington South duo of juniors Kurt Kinser and Paul Young dug the team out of the deficit.

No. 8 Kinser controlled Michigan State’s Anthony Jones Jr. at 157 pounds and got a 9-4 win to cut the Spartan’s six-point lead in half.

Ever the aggressor, Young went to work against Michigan State’s Kyle Bounds at 165 pounds, scoring five takedowns in the match. The 13-3 major decision got the Hoosiers back on top at 13-12.

After some later defeats, though, the Hoosiers fell back into a 13-15 deficit heading into the final three matches.

Junior Eric Cameron was at a stalemate with Michigan State’s Nick Palmieri at 184 pounds. With just an escape point scored by each, the score was tied 1-1 with 20 seconds left. Cameron dropped Palmieri with 14 seconds left to score a takedown and take the match, 3-1. The clutch pin rocked the momentum back to the Hoosiers.

“The win from Cameron was big and it swung the match for us,” IU coach Duane Goldman said.

The Hoosiers would not look back on its 16-15 lead, getting wins from No. 14 sophomore Matt Powless at 197 pounds and No. 2 heavyweight senior Nate Everhart to secure the win.

The win guarantees the Hoosiers a spot in the top half of the Big Ten heading into the conference championships. It also marks the first time since 1996 that the Hoosiers finished above .500 in the Big Ten.

“It’s nice to go out with a win, especially on the road,” Goldman said. “That will serve us well in the Big Tens because even though there aren’t any home teams, you got to be ready to go wherever they put down the mat. And I think our guys are showing that they can do that.”

— Connor O’Gara

Softball
Error-plagued weekend costs Hoosiers

The young IU softball team went 2-3 in their second weekend at the Louisville Slugger Desert Classic in Las Vegas, Nev., bringing their overall record to 2-5.

The wins came against Boise State on Friday, 7-3, and Oregon, 5-4, on Saturday.

“I think there were a lot of good signs and areas to improve on that we learned about this weekend,” junior catcher Cassie Gogreve said.  Freshman first basemen Amanda Wagner hit 3-4 with 3 RBI and 2 homers, the first of her career, in the Boise State win.

On the weekend, there were 14 Hoosier errors in the five games. The UNLV game ended by mercy rule after five innings because of the large Running Rebels lead.

Sophomore infielder Samantha Berenter went 2-2 with an RBI in the UNLV loss.

The Hoosiers look to move forward from this weekend and learn how to fix their mistakes in the upcoming practices.

“We will be focusing on growing as a team,” Gogreve said. “We will keep working harder and harder to keep getting better everyday.”

– Aaron Siegal-Eisman