April 17, 2016
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. -- The No. 39 Nittany Lions (19-6, 5-4) could not finish off the Minnesota Golden Gophers (8-15, 2-7) Sunday, losing the match 4-3. After winning the doubles point, Penn had to fight hard to stay in the singles race. Both teams rallied back and forth for the lead, tying it at 3-3. Penn State had trouble closing the last match, dropping the deciding point to Minnesota.
"It is a tough way to end on the road this season," said Head Coach Jeff Zinn. "It was heart breaking loss. We lost two three-set-matches and they cost us in the end. All we can do is look forward to this weekend when we host two of the better teams in the Big Ten and see how we stack up. We decided to sit out Tomas Hanzlik to rest up a minor injury. Sometimes when you take out one of your best players, it just makes you different."
The Nittany Lions capitalized the momentum they picked up off the 4-2 win over Wisconsin on Friday and brought it into doubles play. After Penn State and Minnesota spilt courts one and two, the doubles point was left in the hands of freshman Constant De La Bassetiere (Reims, France) and junior Aws Laaribi (Rye, N.Y.).
The duo had not played together since March 12 against USF. The match was close, going back and forth. Penn State was able to pull out the 7-4 tiebreak win to bring home the point. The Nittany Lions are now 16-2 when winning the doubles point.
Minnesota came into singles hot, taking the first two points at No. 3 and No. 4. Senior Leonard Stakhovsky (Kiev, Ukraine) was there for the Nittany Lions at No.2 to tie the match back up. Stakhovsky won the first set tiebreak 7-5 and then easily took down senior Ruben Weber 6-2 in the second set.
The Nittany Lions took the lead at 3-2 when Marc Collado (Barcelona, Spain) grabbed the win at No.6. Collado fought hard against Gopher Jeremy Lynn to win both sets 7-5. The Golden Gophers answered with a win at No.1. The match was left up to Ben Lieb (Newtown Square, Pa.) and Justyn Levine at No.5.
Lieb and Levine spilt the first two sets to push the match into a third. The third set did not go Lieb's way as he sprained his ankle when he was up 3-2. The freshman could not bounce back from the injury and lost it 6-4. The Gophers pulled out all the stops on Senior Day to help Levine win them the final, deciding set.
"This was a very disappointing loss for us," said Assistant Coach Paul Tobin. "It was Senior Day here and the crowd was really on their side. Even though we won the doubles point, we knew we had to fight for each singles point; and we did. In the end, we could not finish it up. We will now look at next weekend and focus on beating Illinois and Northwestern."
The Lions return home for the last weekend of regular season play. They will host Illinois on Friday at 4 p.m. and then Northwestern at Noon on Sunday for Senior Day.
3 Penn State, 4 Minnesota
Doubles:
1. Spec/Corwin (MINN) def. David Kohan/ Christian Lutschaunig (PSU), 6-0.
2. Leo Stakhovsky/Matt Barry (PSU) def. Alpeza/Weber (MINN), 6-1.
3. Constant De La Bassetiere/Aws Laaribi def. (PSU) Lynn/Levin (MINN), 7-6(4).
Order of Finish: 1, 2, 3
Singles:
1. Matic Spec (MINN) def. Constant De La Bassetiere (PSU), 6-3, 4-6, 6-2.
2. Leo Stakhovsky (PSU) def. Ruben Weber (MINN), 7-6(5), 6-2.
3. Felix Corwin (MINN) def. Matt Barry (PSU), 7-5, 6-3.
4. Marino Alpeza (MINN) def. Aws Laaribi (PSU), 6-3, 6-3.
5. Justyn Levine (MINN) def. Ben Lieb (PSU), 6-3, 4-6, 6-4.
6. Marc Collado (PSU) def. Jeremy Lynn (MINN), 7-5, 7-5.
Order of Finish: 4, 3, 2, 6, 1, 5