April 17, 2014
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The No. 22 Penn State men's tennis team concludes the regular season this weekend as they welcome No. 63 Nebraska and Iowa to Happy Valley. The Nittany Lions will face the Huskers on Friday at 3 p.m. and the Hawkeyes at Noon on Sunday. Both matches will be played outside at Sarni Tennis Center.
On Sunday, Penn State will honor seniors Russell Bader (Austin, Texas), Ramy Labna (Doha, Qatar) and Chris Young (Melbourne, Australia) in their last home match.
Penn State enters this weekend with a record of 19-4 overall and 6-3 in the Big Ten. They will look to get back on the winning track after dropping two matches last weekend. They fell 6-1 at No. 36 Purdue on Friday and 4-2 at No. 69 Indiana on Sunday.
Sophomore Leonard Stakhovsky (Kiev, Ukraine), ranked 33rd in the ITA Poll, won his match against Purdue to improve to 16-4 this spring. He has six wins against ranked opponents.
Bader is 17-6 in dual matches and has 24 wins overall. With 91 career wins, he sits one win behind Mark Barry (2002-06) for fourth place on the all-time wins list at Penn State.
Matt Barry (Lido Beach, N.Y.) has 14 wins this spring, while Alex Fennell (Bala Cynwyd, Pa.) has 13 and Roman Trkulja (Toronto, Canada) has 12.
Penn State has won the doubles point in 20 of 23 matches this spring.
Bader and Stakhovsky, ranked 36th in the ITA Doubles Poll, are 14-5 in the top doubles spot with three wins against ranked opponents.
Bader is also one win behind Michael James (2010-13) for second on the all-time doubles wins list. Bader has 77 career victories.
Junior Michael Reilly (Raleigh, N.C.) and Young will also look to get back on the winning track this weekend at No. 2 doubles after snapping their 12 match win streak last weekend. They have two wins against ranked opponents.
Barry and Trkulja are 3-0 since being inserted into the No. 3 doubles spot.
Nebraska is ranked 63rd in the ITA Poll and has a mark of 12-12 overall. They are 3-6 in conference play. They went 1-2 last weekend with losses to No. 34 Northwestern and No. 11 Illinois and a win against Nebraska-Omaha.
The Huskers have four wins this spring against ranked opponents.
Sophomore Dusty Boyer is ranked 111th in the singles poll with a 16-6 record this spring while playing mostly at No. 1 singles. Tom Blackwell has 15 wins in dual matches, while Vasileios Stavropoulos has 12 victories.
Brandon Videtich and Bradford Zitsch have combined for a team-leading nine doubles wins.
Iowa enters this weekend with a record of 9-12 overall and 1-9 in the Big Ten. Last weekend, they lost 7-0 against No. 11 Illinois and 5-2 against No. 34 Northwestern. They have lost nine straight matches.
Senior Jonas Dierckx has 12 wins this spring while competing at the top singles spot. Dominic Patrick leads the Hawkeyes with 14 victories, while Matt Hagan has 11 wins.
Hagan and Joey White have paired up to go 8-2 in doubles so far this spring.
Live stats for both matches will be available at http://www.gopsusports.com/livestats/c-tennis/xlive.htm.
Match updates will also be available on our Facebook, Penn State Men's Tennis, and Twitter, @pennstateMTEN, pages.