After a successful 2-0 home start to its campaign, Drake moves onto the road for three straight matches starting in Denver, Colo. The Bulldogs will battle BYU on Saturday (Feb. 13) at 7:00 p.m. before closing the trek with a date versus Denver on Sunday (Feb. 14) at 1:00 p.m.
A LOOK BACK: The Bulldogs opened their spring dual campaign registering a pair of 5-2 home victories over Northern Illinois and Memphis last Saturday (Feb. 6) and Sunday (Feb. 7), respectively.
A pair of come-from-behind three-set victories highlighted a 5-2 triumph by Drake over Memphis at the Roger Knapp Tennis Center.
The Bulldogs jumped to an early 1-0 advantage on the strength of a sweep of doubles.
The lead swelled to 2-0 following a 6-3, 6-0 triumph by junior Mauricio Ballivian (Santa Cruz, Bolivia) over Charlie Ramsey at the top singles hole.
The Tigers rolled off two unanswered wins to square the affair at two after triumphs at the Nos. 4 and 6 positions.
Senior Guilherme Marsiglia (Porto Algre, Brazil) extended the margin in favor of Drake, 3-2, following a 7-6 (5), 6-1 victory past Michael Janz at No. 3.
The outcome of the match then came down to a pair of third-set tiebreakers involving freshmen James McKie (Edinburgh, Scotland) and Jean Erasmus (Windhoek, Namibia) on the Nos. 2 and 5 courts.
McKie clinched the triumph for the Bulldogs with a dramatic 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 win over Leon Nasemann.
The final match to be decided occurred on court No. 5 where Erasmus claimed a second-set tiebreaker against Michael Gaerthoeffner before taking the deciding frame, 6-0, to give Drake the triumph.
Claiming victories in seven of its nine matches, Drake opened its spring campaign with a 5-2 victory over Northern Illinois at the Roger Knapp Tennis Center.
The win represented the first in the head-coaching career for first-year Bulldog mentor Jimmy Borendame.
Drake swept the doubles competition with the tandem of Ballivian and McKie registering an 8-1 decision at the No. 1 position over Mikhail Titov and Javier Bernabe to secure the doubles point.
The advantage swelled to 3-0 on the strength of triumphs by McKie and fellow freshman Ryan Drake (Hilton Head Island, S.C.) at the Nos. 2 and 6 singles holes.
Ballivian then stepped forwarded and awarded the match to Drake with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Maksym Bartiuk at top singles slot.
Rounding out the victory parade for the Bulldogs was Erasmus, who posted a 6-3, 6-3 decision against Maximilian Phillips at No. 5.
Drake nearly made it a complete sweep of singles but the Bulldogs came up short in third-set tiebreakers at the Nos. 3 and 4 positions.
LAST YEAR: Throughout its 47-match home-court winning streak spanning the last five seasons Drake had many close calls and on Feb. 7, 2009 the magic came to an end as No. 48 Denver rallied from a 3-0 deficit to post a 4-3 victory over the Bulldogs at the Drake Tennis Center. The loss was the first by Drake since the 2004-05 campaign.
