acastro@mavs.coloradomesa.edu

The CMU men’s and women’s tennis teams were on the road this weekend for their first tournaments of the season. The women headed to Fort Collins for the CSU Tennis Invitational and the men to Colorado Springs for their tournament at the Air Force Academy.

“The fall season is about getting some experience,” coach Dan MacDonald said.

MacDonald, who is head coach for both the men and women, traveled to CSU with the women and assistant coach David Smith traveled with the men.

Both D1 and D2 schools competed in the tournament, with a notable win by freshman Emily Dodson defeating Martina Gilmore 6-1, 6-3 of CSU-Pueblo in straight sets.

With a young women’s tennis team this year, MacDonald is focusing this fall season on gaining experience for the underclassmen and focusing on the transition into collegiate matches.

The men’s team won both matches this weekend, defeating University of Texas of the Permian Basin 8-1 and Montana-Billings 5-4. Sophomore Jordan Lyden won both his single and double matches against both teams. First, with a singles win over Alvaro Sifuentes 6-1, 6-2, then, in the doubles match, Lyden and partner Andres Hernandez defeated Sifuentes and Justin Immler 8-3 in a pro-set. In his matches against Montana-Billings, Lyden cruised past Navin Marimuthu 6-0, 6-0 in singles and the Lyden/Hernandez doubles team defeated Marimuthu and Brad Knutson 8-3.

Up next, the women and men will both faceoff against Colorado College on Thursday before heading down to Pueblo to compete against Emporia State University, Fort Hays State, Newman University and Nebraska-Kearney.

“This past tournament was great practice for next week, where we’ll be playing a lot of teams from Kansas and Nebraska,” MacDonald said. “We have a young team this year, so this tournament was great on getting to play a lot of matches.”