Northwestern Fires Past Northern Illinois, 6-1

2/19/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Tennis

Feb. 19, 2011

Complete Results

Site: Evanston, Ill. (Combe Tennis Center)
Score: No. 69 Northwestern 6, Northern Illinois 1
Records: NU (6-3, 0-0 Big Ten) Northern Illinois (2-6, 0-0 MAC)
Next NU Event: Saturday, Feb. 19 vs. Western Illinois • Evanston, Ill. • 5:30 p.m.

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Head coach Arvid Swan's Northwestern squad bounced back from a late-night 4-3 loss to Vanderbilt on Friday by coming up with a 6-1 triumph over Northern Illinois Saturday afternoon in Evanston. NU easily handled the Huskies in a doubles sweep and cruised to straight-set wins in four of six singles matches for its sixth victory of the season.

For the eighth time in nine dual matches, Northwestern claimed the early 1-0 lead following doubles play, picking up its fifth doubles sweep of the season despite shuffling its lineup due to the absence of junior Joshua Graves. The tandem of Andrew McCarthy and Tobias Reitz slid up to the No. 1 position for the first time this season and came up with an 8-4 victory over NIU's Maksym Lagutin and Maksym Bartiuk.

NU sent sophomore Spencer Wolf and junior Eric Spector out for the No. 2 match and received an 8-2 win over Roman Turtygin and Max Phillips, while Northwestern's undefeated tandem of Gulliver Prep products Chris Jackman and Raleigh Smith topped Axel Lagelof and Brant Poggensei-Wei, 8-3.

The bottom half of Northwestern's singles lineup again provided a spark as freshman Raleigh Smith was the first player off the courts at No. 6 singles, topping Poggensee-Wei, 6-3, 6-0. NU has now won seven of its nine matches at the No. 6 spot this season.

Following suit was McCarthy at No. 3 as the senior grew stronger and more accurate as his match against Turtygin wore on, eventually winning 6-3, 6-1 to claim his third straight singles win and put NU on the brink of victory up 3-0.

The dual-clinching point came only seconds later when Tobias Reitz put the finishing touches on his bagel-ing of Maksym Lagutin, 6-0, 6-0, at No. 4.

After dominating Phillips in the first set 6-1, Jackman seized a 5-2 lead in the second set at No. 5 before Phillips staged a rally to make things interesting down the stretch. Jackman was able to prevail, 7-5, however, to move to 6-2 on the year in singles action.

Things were a bit tighter at No. 1 singles where junior Joshua Graves was battling Marksym Bartiuk as well as a minor hand injury suffered Friday evening. Graves bounced back from a 6-1 first-set loss to take the second 6-3, but a big break by Bartiuk late in the third gave the Huskie the 7-5 win despite Graves' inspired effort.

For the second day in a row, sophomore Spencer Wolf was the final match on the court as he took on Axel Lagerlof, who fought to split sets by winning the second set in tiebreakers, 7-6 (5). Up 5-2 in the ensuing third-set superbreaker, Wolf hit a beautiful winner down the line and followed that up with outstanding reflex volleys at the net to win the next point and hold firm control ahead 7-2. He finished Lagerlof off by a final score of 10-5 to close out the first of NU's two matches on the day.

Northwestern's doubleheader continues at 5:30 p.m. Saturday against another in-state foe, Western Illinois, at the Combe Tennis Center.

No. 69 Northwestern 6, Northern Illinois 1
Singles:
1: Maksym Bartiuk (NIU) def. Joshua Graves (NU), 6-1, 3-6, 7-5
2: Spencer Wolf (NU) def. Axel Lagerlof (NIU), 6-3, 6-7 (5), 1-0 (10-5)
3: Andrew McCarthy (NU) def. Roman Turtygin (NIU), 6-3, 6-1
4: Tobias Reitz (NU) def. Maksym Lagutin (NIU), 6-0, 6-0
5: Chris Jackman (NU) def. Max Phillips (NIU), 6-1, 7-5
6: Raleigh Smith (NU) def. Brant Poggensee-Wei (NIU), 6-3, 6-0

Doubles:
1: McCarthy/Reitz (NU) def Lagutin/Bartiuk (NIU), 8-4
2: Spector/Wolf (NU) def. Turtygin/Phillips (NIU), 8-2
3: Jackman/Smith (NU) def. Lagelof/Poggensee-Wei (NIU), 8-3

Order of Finish:
Singles (6, 3, 4*, 5, 1, 2)
Doubles (2, 3*, 1)

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