Taking advantage of opportunities given to you is a huge thing. It is often those opportunities we let fall by the wayside that come back to haunt us later in life. The Hamline men’s tennis team let such an opportunity slide away from them, as they dropped a heartbreaker to the Saint Mary’s Cardinals 4-5 on Holt Courts last Saturday, April 16.

The men took the court after the women’s tennis team dropped their own match against the Cardinals 1-8. The Cardinals swept the women’s doubles matches in 1-8, 3-8, and 3-8 decisions. Senior Maggie Gibson and first-year Madeline Muotka prevented the Cardinals from a straight sweep in singles as Gibson won her match in straight sets (6-1, 6-2) and Muotka took her opponent to a third-set tiebreaker before running out of steam (2-6, 6-4, 4-10).

“We came out a little flat in doubles and they took advantage,” head coach for the men and women’s teams Jon Henning said. “We’re better in singles so I knew most of the matches would be pretty competitive, but we could not quite pull the sets out.”

The weather, while sunny and warm, did provide a major drawback in the gusts of wind that swirled around the courts in the early afternoon.

“The weather is big and we want to play outside because that’s where I feel we are stronger,” said Henning. “People say tennis is a mental game because it’s all about how you handle the wind and the elements and the sun. I thought we did an okay job with the wind, but it’s tough to play in.”

Muotka’s match, the final women’s contest to finish, will be a good learning experience for the women’s team going forward.

“I don’t think we played our best tennis,” said Muotka. “I know we can improve from here and use this as a learning experience.”

Muotka’s matchup was just a taste of what was to come in the men’s matchups. The men, coming off a 0-9 sweep at the hands of conference rival St. Olaf the day before, started much stronger than the women had, sweeping doubles in 8-2, 8-4, and 8-6 decisions. After the sweep, the Pipers just needed two wins in singles to win the match. Junior Gabriel Guarin scored a relatively quick victory for Hamline in a straight sets victory (6-1, 6-1) over his opponent. With just one point separating them from victory, the Pipers waited for that lucky break that would give them a win.

It never came.

“I told our team that we had a match last year where we were down 3-9 and we saved six match points to win the match and beat Concordia,” said Henning. “This year felt like the flip of it. We had at least five match points in one match to win it and didn’t pull any of them out. We just kept losing the third set super-tiebreaker.”

Junior David Yanagita, sophomore Ben Klimek and junior Cody Jahrig all went into third-set tiebreakers, and senior Ben Ekstein went into a second-set tiebreaker that could have pushed his match to tiebreakers as well. None of them could finish the Cardinals off.

“We haven’t had too much success in the MIAC,” said Yanagita. “Seeing how this match was so close shows us we are right there with other MIAC teams and we just need to push a little harder in practice and then we can start taking some of these matches.”

Jahrig’s contest was the last to finish on the men’s side, and it was entirely indicative of the close level of skill between the Cardinals and the Pipers. Jahrig lost the first set 6-7 in tiebreakers, won the second set 7-6 in tiebreakers, and lost the third-set tiebreaker 10-7.

“St. Mary’s of all our MIAC competition is our closest level of competition,” said senior Elizabeth Hughes. “They’re very similar talent-wise to us and it’s a matchup we are usually competitive in.”

The women return to action today, Wednesday, April 20, for a home match against UW-River Falls at 4 p.m., while the men return to action tomorrow, Thursday, April 21, for a home match against St. John’s.