After losing to Western Michigan 5-2 last weekend, the men’s tennis team (12-6, 1-1) will travel to Indiana this weekend to face off against conference rival Ball State (12-6, 1-0 MAC) and non-conference team Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (5-11).

The Huskies are coming off a loss to the Broncos last weekend to give them a 1-1 record in the MAC. In that loss though they were without a key player in their lineup in Axel Lagerlof. Lagerlof was injured a few days before the Huskies faced off against the Broncos and head coach Patrick Fisher is still not sure if he’s ready.

“As of now from what we heard there is a good chance he will play,” Fisher said. “We’ll see come Friday. We are a different team when he’s in the lineup.”

During the Huskies’ trip to Indiana the first team they will be facing will be the Ball State Cardinals. The Cardinals are coming off a 5-2 loss to No. 27-ranked Notre Dame. Even so, they have been a difficult matchup for the Huskies in recent years. This time, Fisher expects things to be a little different.

“Ball State has a very good coach going into his 35th year [as head coach] and being in the top 20 sometimes, they [play] very well,” Fisher said. “Ball State has banged us for the past few years but heading into this matchup we expect good results.”

After Ball State the Huskies will face IPFW, which has had a weak season.

Looking at the IPFW roster, no player has more than sevens wins. Andres Cobos (7-9) and Martin Muadi (7-7) lead the team. However, Fisher and the Huskies aren’t taking IPFW lightly.

“IPFW, we don’t know how they’ve been playing this year but we don’t want to focus on that,” Fisher said. “We try to treat every team like they can beat us.”

Like Fisher has been saying all year, he’s going to need the bottom half of his lineup to step up if they want to be successful this year. Jovan Zeljkovic stepped up last week for the Huskies. This weekend’s matchups will give the Huskies another opportunity to come together as a unit and dominate from the No. 1 position to the No. 6.