PROVO, Utah—Despite singles efforts from Keaton Cullimore and John Pearce, BYU dropped its first home match of the season to Utah State, 4-3, Saturday afternoon.
BYU (14-4, 3-0 West Coast Conference) dropped the doubles point to Utah State (14-5, 1-0 Mountain West Conference). The Aggie team of Romal Ugarte and Luis Lopez defeated BYU’s No. 1 doubles team of Pearce and Jacob Sullivan, 6-3, for the first doubles point. They were quickly followed by teammates Jack Swindells and Jonas Maier, who beat the Cougars’ Cullimore and Jeremy Bourgeois 6-4 to go up 1-0 in the match. Andrey Goryachkov and Aidan Carrazedo’s match against the Aggies’ Andrew Nakajima and Jamie Barajas was suspended at 6-5 in favor of Utah State.
The Cougars took the first two points on the singles side. Pearce defeated Utah State’s Samuel Serrano, 6-3, 6-4, and Cullimore defeated Maier 6-4, 6-4. Swindells tied the match back up for the Aggies at 2-2, defeating Sullivan in straight sets 6-4, 7-6 (7-4).
In the No. 1 singles spot, Shane Monroe lost a hard-fought battle against Barajas, losing 1-6, 6-4, 4-6 to give the Aggies a 3-2 advantage. Goryachkov evened the match up at 3-3, defeating Lopez 6-4, 5-7, 6-3. Carrazedo rallied from behind to take his match to three sets, but eventually lost to Ugarte, 6-7(0-7), 6-2, 3-6, to tip the match in Utah State's favor, 4-3.
BYU heads to California next week for a WCC matchup against No. 31 San Diego. The match will be played in San Diego at 1:00 p.m. PDT. Click here for live stat updates during the match.