BVU Men's Tennis Tops Simpson 4-3 for First Conference Win

Ryan Smith needed just two sets and 23 games to rewrite BVU's season. His 6-1, 6-2 win at No. 4 singles delivered the match's fourth and deciding point Tuesday at Storm Lake's Lamberti Recreation Center, capping a 4-3 victory over Simpson College that gave Buena Vista University its first American Rivers Conference win of the season.

The match had been moved indoors against cold April temperatures, but the more significant shift happened in the doubles flights. BVU swept all three to earn the opening team point and, more importantly, an early edge in confidence. Coach Brett Groen had built his game plan around that moment.

"We came out of the gate playing aggressively but smart, and that translated into three straight doubles wins and the first big point of the night," Groen said. He added the doubles approach "paid off" in singles and that BVU's emphasis on attacking net play has begun to show in results.

It nearly had to. Simpson answered by winning both the No. 1 and No. 2 singles flights, then tightened the score further with a tiebreaker win at No. 5, pulling level at 3-3. BVU had stayed in the match through the middle of the draw: Bryson Fredericksen went 6-3, 6-1 in his singles match, and Owen Stansberry was dominant at 6-0, 6-1, keeping the Beavers' lead alive while Simpson worked through the upper positions.

With the score knotted, Smith closed his match cleanly, recording his fourth singles win of the year and giving Groen's group a result that the doubles point alone could not have produced.

BVU heads to Dubuque and Loras later this week for road matches, the first chance to find out whether the doubles-first formula built at Lamberti can travel.