On March 5, the men’s tennis team ended their four consecutive losses, defeating Illinois Tech by a score of 5-4. The team began the season without a win, a less than ideal start. However, the match against Illinois Tech turned out to be the Vikings’ best performance in the ongoing season.

First-year Arthur Hermange relishes his astonishment about the win to the game tactics and the offensiveness of the Vikings against the Scarlett Hawks.

“Before all the singles, the coach found the good works and called on us to accept our mistakes from the opening,” Hermange said. “Because of that factor and motivation, I tried to be the most offensive player possible and finished all the points in two or three shots.”

For senior Kyle Boudreau, he said he recognizes the youthfulness of the team and acknowledges that it will take time for the team to know each opponent and become familiar with the conference.

“We had a little bit of a tough start to the season and we played some really tough teams,” Boudreau said. “We have a lot of freshmen on the team, so we were learning how to play together and support each other when we played against Illinois Tech.”

Boudreau also sees their comeback as a combined team effort, recognizing the technical know-how of the tacticians to pair players on the court.

“Coach David and his team are a brilliant tennis mind and he knows the game inside and out,” Boudreau said. “He goes to the game with an individualized approach where he focuses on the strengths of individual players and then puts those together with the doubles combination.”

Senior Leonoardo Panosso partnered with Hermange to tighten their chance of winning but only managed to take one of the three doubles by a score of 8-3. Panosso’s transition in the match against Illinois Tech created more chances to secure a point—having been seeded in the most competitive side of the lineup in the last matches.

“I changed my position from the last couple matches because the transition from four to two was a little bit hard in the beginning,” Panosso said. “The players in number two are way better, so I switched to keep that consistency at winning and improving my game a little bit more.”

As the Vikings picked up an important first win of the season, they will be up against Carleton on Monday, March 21.