NIU men’s tennis: Huskies repeat as MAC regular season champs

By Patrick Smith

Men’s tennis won the MAC regular season championship Sunday after it dominated on the court.

The Huskies (18-5, 4-1 MAC) beat the Buffalo Bulls (10-10, 2-3 MAC), 5-2, Sunday in Buffalo, N.Y. to claim their second-straight MAC regular season title, winning the conference title outright.

“Obviously, it’s been one of our goals to win the regular season outright,” said head coach Patrick Fisher. “It’s definitely a great accomplishment.”

Senior Frederic Cadieux said the players are excited about Sunday’s accomplishment against the Bulls.

“It feels amazing,” Cadieux said. “It was a big day, and we’re pretty happy to be the No. 1 seed in the tournament. It was an incredible feeling.”

Junior Simon Formont added a similar sentiment about how the Huskies performed as they won five of the six singles matches after losing the doubles point to open the day.

“It feels great,” Formont said. “We came up big today. We did an unbelievable job, and the freshman played great. It [was] just an amazing day.”

The Huskies will now be preparing for the MAC Championships. The semifinals will be at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Friday in DeKalb. The championship match will be at 1 p.m. Saturday in DeKalb.

“We’re obviously going into it with momentum,” Fisher said. “We won our last four matches. We’re confident. But, the tournament is a different animal; the regular season is much different from the actual tournament, so we know that we must be prepared for that.”

Even so, Cadieux said the Huskies are “pretty confident” heading into the postseason.

“We’re confident as the No. 1 seed, and we have to play two very good matches — first versus Buffalo then against whomever is next,” Cadieux said. “We have to play like we’re the best in the league.”