BOISE, Idaho - In the USTA's hand-picked College MatchDay, the No. 41 BYU men's tennis team topped the No. 45 Boise State Broncos on Saturday at the Boas Tennis Center.
BYU's (16-4) victory over Boise State (12-9) ends the Broncos' 28-match home win streak. The Cougars improve to 7-2 against ranked teams this year and 33-0 in the mountain region over the last four years.
"I have been a part of some great BYU performances and this was right up there as one of the all-time great Cougar performances," BYU coach Brad Pearce said. "With a hostile crowd, in a tough enviornment, down on the first set in almost every match, these guys dug deep and just absolutely fought like wounded Cougars. I can hardly express how proud I am of these bunch of guys."
With the score tied at three points each, BYU's Andrey Goryachkov, playing in the No. 6 singles position, won his first set but found himself down early in the second. The freshman singles player then won three straight games to earn a 4-2 lead against Garrett Patton. The lead proved to be fatal for Patton as Goryachkov secured the fourth point and the victory for the Cougars.
"I think Andrey played as close to a perfect match today as I've ever seen," coach Pearce said. "With the crowd focused on one court, it was a performance for the record books. He's clinched other matches this year but today's performance was near flawless. It was absolutely incredible."
Boise State earned the first point of the day with wins on courts 2 and 3 in doubles play. The Broncos continued the momentum as Nathan Sereke topped Spencer Smith 6-2, 6-3 at the No. 2 singles position.
No. 37 Patrick Kawka notched the first point for BYU by snapping a 12-match win streak for No. 29 Andy Bettles 7-5, 6-1. Sophomore Francis Sargeant finished next with a win on court 3 over Scott Sears 6-2, 2-6, 6-2.
The Bronocs took an important 3-2 lead as John Pearce fell to Thomas Teneiro 6-4, 6-3. But Keaton Cullimore found a way to top Filipp Pogostkin in three sets 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 to tie the match.
"There were many times they [BSU] thought they had the match won and somehow we had guys who just kept fighting," coach Pearce said. "Keaton gave us the opportunity to play for the match win. Today was a testament to never say die."
The Cougars return to league play next week and face Portland on the road on April 11 at 10 a.m. PDT.