Gamage Interview                       Kosich Interview             Gallery

ORLANDO, Flo.- The Montana State University Billings men's tennis team kicked off the spring season with a win over Cedarville University 8-1 and a loss against Division I Niagara University 3-6. 

The Jackets (1-2) came out of opening doubles play with a 2-1 lead.  At Number one, Christian Fischer and Josh Hedderig lost to CU 8-6 in a pro-set that is played to eight games in which the victor must win by two or go into a tiebreaker when both teams reach 7-7. 

The number two team of Brandon Beardsley and Eric De Romas, won a fought tough match 8-7 and needed a tie breaker to secure the victory.  In a tie breaker, it is rally scoring and is the first team to 10 points win by two.  MSUB won the tie break 10-0. 

Finally the number three team of Daniil Gorkov and Kavindu Gamage cruised to an easy 8-0 win over CU.

MSUB would sweep singles play in dominating fashion not dropping a single set.  At number one, Fischer beat John Filcik 6-2, 6-2; Numbe two Beardsley bested Ryan Shomo 6-3, 6-3; Hedderig at number three beat Joel Clark 6-3, 6-1; at number four, DeRomas defeated Adam Levesque 6-4, 6-1; number five Gamage crusied to a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Jared Gerber and number six Gorkov beat Stephen Combs 6-1, 6-2. 

"It was good to be out of the rain," head coach Lew Kosich said.  "The guys had a great match and they all played fundamentally strong and this is a good start to a lot of matches this week."

MSU-Billings next faced their second Division I opponent of the season, Niagara University from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.  In the Dark under the lights, MSUB came out strong lead by the number two team of Beardsley and DeRomas who had a resounding victory over the Purple Eagles, 8-3.  MSUB lost 8-3 at number one and number three to give NU the 2-1 lead heading into singles play. 

The Yellowjackets number one player, Fischer would grind out a victory in straight over David Raymond 7-5, 6-4.  Gamage at number five also pulled off an impressive third set tie break win over Mathien Lacasse, 6-2, 2-6, 1-0 (10-3 in the tie breaker). 

The remaining Yellowjackets fought hard, but NU proved to be too much and won four of six singles points to go onto the 6-3 victory.  

The Yellowjackets next face Grand Valley State University and Palm Beach Atlantic University on Friday Mar. 7th.