The Horned Frogs (10-11, 0-4 Big 12) celebrated Senior Night on Saturday with a 7-0 win against the Rice Owls in the team’s final home match before the Big 12 Championships.
“I thought this match was a great way to end our home stand with a 7-0 win,” head coach David Roditi said in a press release. “I can’t remember the last time it happened against a program like Rice. Over the last 10 years, they have been beating us up, so it is nice to finish that way.”
The Frogs’ formula for victory has been gaining the early lead with the doubles point, which is exactly what they did against Rice (8-11, 1-1 C-USA).
Junior Facundo Lugones and freshman Hudson Blake tallied the first match win for the Frogs, defeating Rice’s duo of Gustavo Gonzalez and Zach Yablon, 8-6.
The No. 10 coupling of juniors Nick Chappell and Will Stein helped nail down the first match point for TCU by defeating Rice’s Max Andrews and Adam Gustafsson, 8-5, which gave TCU the early 1-0 lead.
TCU also struck first in singles competition with a dominating performance from Rodolfo Bustamante. The senior played his last home match of the regular season by beating Gustavo Gonzalez, 6-1, 6-3.
Bustamante is the only senior on the Frogs’ squad this year.
Roditi said he was proud of Bustamante and that the match went exactly the way it should, with a strong performance to finish out his career.
No. 83 Lugones won the match to seal victory for the Frogs by defeating Rice’s Max Andrews, 6-2, 7-6 to give TCU a 4-0 lead.
“The conditions were not easy out there so it wasn’t going to be about who played best, but who competed better,” Roditi said in the release. “I thought our guys competed really well and therefore we got the win.”
No. 49 Chappell continued his great play as of late, rallying in the final set of a three-set battle against Rice’s Srikar Alla, 7-5, 4-6, 10-5 to give the Frogs a 7-0 match win.
TCU will wrap up its regular season with a match at Texas Tech on April 18 in Lubbock, Texas. The team will then play host to the Big 12 Tennis Championships from April 24 to April 27 at the Bayard H. Friedman Tennis Center.
