After the loss to Ball State on April 11, the NIU men’s tennis team regained momentum and finished its regular season at home with a sweep of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne and Toledo.

With the victory over IPFW on Friday, the Huskies (16-5 overall, 3-2 MAC) clinched the No. 3 seed in the MAC tournament and will get a rematch with No. 6 seeded IPFW in Thursday’s first round match.

“I think with these two wins, our team is a lot more confident going into the MAC tournament,” NIU senior Ryan Schnack said. “We’re back on a winning streak again, and I think it will carry over, and we will do real well.”

Western Michigan secured the tournament’s top seed with a 4-3 win over Ball State, the No. 2 seed, on Saturday.

NIU began the weekend Friday with a 7-0 victory over IPFW (7-14, 0-4).

Schnack, playing the final home match of his career, won 6-2, 6-1 at the No. 6 singles spot.

“My serve was a lot better than it has been in the past,” Schnack said. “I’ve been practicing it a lot, and it came through for me today. I started off a little slow, but in the end I picked it up and got the victory, so I was happy about that.”

The Huskies garnered their ninth shutout of the season the next day with an identical 7-0 sweep of Toledo (9-11, 0-4). The victory was NIU’s seventh win in a row over the visiting Rockets.

NIU won the No. 3 doubles and No. 6 singles slots by default after Toledo brought only five healthy players to the match.

The injury-depleted Rockets also were without No. 1 singles and doubles player Khalid Al Nabhani. Nabhani is playing in the Davis Cup for his native country of Oman.

NIU senior Aaron Forsberg won both his matches 6-1, 6-0 and 6-2, 6-1.

“I enjoyed myself my last match mainly because I was winning,” Forsberg said. “The main thing was coming in and getting two wins, especially two shutouts. That’s big.”

Fellow senior Juan Pablo Barriga also enjoyed his final home match with a 6-2, 6-2 triumph over Toledo’s Todd Wojtkowski at No. 2 singles.

“I will definitely remember this day,” Barriga said. “It was my last match here. It was a beautiful day, and the crowd was cheering a lot. It was real nice.”