Photo Credit: Michigan Tech

BAY CITY, Mich. — Michigan Tech split its first two matches at the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Men’s Tennis Championship today. The fifth-seeded Huskies lost their opening-round match to No. 4 seed Wayne State 5-1 before defeating No. 8 seed Tiffin 5-0.

Tech’s lone point vs. WSU came at No. 2 doubles where Brandon Ellefson and Anders Sandholm combined for an 8-5 victory. No. 3 doubles was a tight finish. Chris Verhulst and Tim Viola were serving up 7-6, but lost three straight games to fall 9-7.

Wayne State won each of the first three completed singles matches (Nos. 2, 4 and 6) in straight sets to end the match. Tech was either ahead or even in the other three singles matches, which could have made the final score 5-4.

Against Tiffin, Tech came out of the blocks quickly with convincing wins at all three doubles positions. The No. 1 pair of Brett Girard and Douglas Yossida turned in an 8-1 win, while both No. 2 and No. 3 played to 8-2 scores.

Sandholm and Yossida each won by 6-3, 6-2 scores at No. 2 and No. 3 singles, respectively to wrap up the team victory.

“We know what we needed to do against Wayne, but we didn’t execute,” said head coach Mike Axford. “We’d played so well in doubles over the last two weeks, it hurt that we didn’t take two points there. The disappointment carried over into singles.

“Against Tiffin, we came back and played okay. It was good to see Anders win the deciding point.”

Michigan Tech (8-9) will play in the GLIAC Tournament fifth-place match tomorrow against seventh-seeded Findlay at 9 a.m.