Mississippi State wrapped up their complete domination during their home stand with two more shutout wins. In the doubleheader Saturday, the Bulldogs took on the Blazers of UAB and the Eagles of Morehead State. After a 4-0 win over UAB in the morning showdown, MSU came back in the second leg of the afternoon and defeated Morehead State 7-0.
In the first match of the day, the Bulldogs opened up against UAB. In doubles, Nuno Borges and Niclas Braun defeated the duo of Christian Coetzee and Luiz Pinto 6-0. Soon after that, Mate Cutura and Trevor Foshey took down Mitchell Martell and Kenton Paron 7-5. Since they took two out of the three games of doubles play, Vaughn Hunter and Luka Sucevic’s game was suspended and the Bulldogs took the 1-0 lead overall.
Soon after, they began singles play. Borges was the first to finish his singles match, defeating Coetzee 6-1, 6-3 to give MSU a 2-0 lead. Strahinja Rakic was the next to finish, beating Pinto 6-1, 6-1 and extended the lead to 3-0.
Sucevic completed the game for MSU when he defeated Paron 6-2, 6-2. Since the lead was up to 4-0, Rashab Agarwal, Braun, and Hunters’ matches were suspended.
In the afternoon match, Morehead State came to try and knock off MSU on their recent hot streak. In doubles play, Agarwal and Cutura defeated Garrett Mandrell and Enrique Samundio 6-0. Hunter and Sucevic then beat Nick Mercer and Ognjen Sunjevaric 6-4 to secure the doubles point for MSU. The lead was then 1-0 and Borges and Braun’s match was suspended.
With a 1-0 lead, they then turned to singles play. To begin, Sucevic defeated Tyler Edlin 6-2, 6-0. Braun then almost won with a shut out, defeating Mercer 6-1, 6-0 to extend the Bulldog lead to 3-0.
Rakic and Foshey then finished next, when Rakic defeated Mandrell 6-2, 6-3 and Foshey dominated Samundio 6-3, 6-0. To finish the match, Borges defeated Ritchie Kruuenberg 6-3, 6-2 and Agarwal won his game in three rounds, 6-4, 5-7, 1-0(4). The Bulldogs completely obliterated the Eagles, winning 7-0 overall.
With the home stand over, Head coach Matt Roberts was very pleased with how his team has been playing.
“These guys are learning,” Roberts said. “We are seeing things each week and applying them. We’ve grown a lot since our last time away from home and the ITA Kickoff Weekend.”
Mississippi State went 7-0 over the course of their two-week home stand. The 29th ranked Bulldogs are now 7-2 and will prepare to travel to Tulane Feb 20 to take on the Green Wave at 1 p.m.
