Feb. 1, 2014
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The Penn State men's tennis team is set to host a doubleheader on Sunday against #33 Virginia Tech and Cleveland State. The Nittany Lions will face the Hokies at 11 a.m. A matchup against Cleveland State will follow at approximately 5 p.m.
Penn State is coming off a 2-0 opening weekend as they knocked off William & Mary, 5-2, on Friday before shutting out St. John's, 7-0, on Sunday.
Virginia Tech is the first of 15 ranked opponents on the Nittany Lions' schedule. Russell Bader (Austin, Texas), Matt Barry (Lido Beach, N.Y.) and Roman Trkulja (Toronto, Canada) all went 2-0 in singles.
Marc Collado Castells (Barcelona, Spain), Michael Reilly (Raleigh, N.C.) and Leonard Stakhovsky (Kiev, Ukraine) also won singles matches.
Bader now has 76 career wins, one behind Jamie Gresh (1998-02) for 10th all-time on the Penn State career wins list. Bader, with 75 doubles wins, also needs two doubles wins to tie Mark Griesser (1995-99) for 10th on the career doubles wins list.
The Penn State doubles teams went a combined 4-1 this past weekend and won the doubles point in both matches. Bader and Stakhovsky went 1-1 this weekend, while the duos of Reilly and Trkulja and David Kohan (Sydney, Australia) and Christian Lutschaunig (Richboro, Pa.) each won a match.
Penn State could earn the doubles point for the third straight match, which would be the first time since 2012, when they won the point in seven consecutive matches from February 4th to March 9th.
Virginia Tech enters Sunday with a mark of 3-1. The Hokies competed this weekend at the ITA Kick-Off event. They fell 4-1 against #9 Oklahoma, but defeated #24 Tulsa, 4-3.
The Hokies have three player ranked in the ITA Singles Poll. Sophomore Amerigo Contini is ranked 26th in the nation with a record of 10-4. Sophomore Andreas Bjerrehus is ranked 60th and is 11-3 this year. Aaron Gomez is ranked 122nd with a mark of 8-5.
Contini and Bjerrehus are also the 23rd-best doubles pair in the nation, according to the ITA Doubles Poll. The duo is 9-5 this year.
Cleveland State is 1-1 this spring. The Vikings dropped a 4-3 match against Western Michigan, but responded by knocking off Ball State, 5-2. They will take on Buffalo on Saturday before facing the Nittany Lions on Sunday.
Cleveland State went 11-11 in 2013 and made the NCAA Tournament as the Horizon League bid, where they fell in the first round to Ohio State.
Senior Matt Kuelker leads the team with nine wins. Manuel Bellutti and Matt Ford each have eight wins. Ali Shabib and Jorg Van der Vloet split time at the No. 1 singles spot last weekend.
Shabib and Joe VanMeter went 0-2 in the No. 1 doubles spot. Kuelker combined with Nolan Marks and Andre Mick. Ford and Van der Vloet also paired up.
Live scoring for the matches will be available at http://www.gopsusports.com/livestats/c-tennis/xlive.htm.
Fans can also follow updates from the match on our Facebook, Penn State Men's Tennis, and Twitter, @pennstateMTEN, pages.