Tournament Page

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio Dominican's men's tennis team used a late surge to qualify for the GLIAC Tournament in its first year of eligibility for postseason play. The Panthers, seeded fifth in the tournament, will take on No. 4 seed Grand Valley at 6 p.m. Friday in Midland, Mich. in the opening round. GVSU scored an 8-1 win over the Panthers earlier this season, though several of the matches came right down to the wire.

Head coach Ryan Beigle sat down to talk about the team's performance in the final stages of the season and preview the conference tournament.

In the last two weeks of the season, you had a great turnaround, winning your last three conference matches to get into the tournament. Talk about the difference in play over the last two weeks.

The turning point was laying it on the line to them, telling them what could happen and what we control. The fact that we controlled our own fate and destiny inspired and encouraged the guys. They accepted the challenge, and that was the biggest thing. They came together and started to believe.

Your challenged yourself with a tough non-conference schedule throughout the season. Did that contribute to that mindset down the stretch?

It could have had a negative effect. We always challenge ourselves in the Februarys' and Marches' with teams that are legitimate opponents. I started to question my schedule because we didn't have an average, run-of-the-mill match. It was all high level, and you started to wonder if losing became habit forming.

I think what we found is that we haven't played an opponent where we know, "OK, this won't be a challenge." It's been a challenge day in and day out, and in the short term, we are used to seeing high level competition and we're not seeing anything now that we haven't seen the entire season.

So far in the GLIAC, you've been able to take care of business and defeat the teams seeded below you. What's it going to take to climb to the next level and beat the teams seeded in front of you?

There are a few matches from the regular season that the guys want back. Like any sport, there are times when things haven't gone your way and it just gets away from you a little bit. We have some opportunities to match up with some teams again and get the results that we know we are capable of. For the most part, we did what we needed to do to finish the season, and we finished it in a strong way. Now it comes down to using that momentum in the conference tournament and solidifying that moving forward.

Have you altered any of your usual training and preparations with the tournament coming up and having to play three matches in three days?

We really got after it the first couple of days of the week, trying to improve our fitness, getting into a rhythm, hitting a lot of balls. We're just working hard. It's not easy with the three matches in three days, and if we want to compete, these matches are going to be brutal and physical. If we don't work on the physical aspects then we will struggle in that area this week. We're trying to keep the momentum up.

The difference the last two weeks is we've done a lot more competing in practice. We've been getting after it a little bit more, having everything count for something specific, and that raised the level of competition.

This will be the first time that the guys have been able to compete in the GLIAC tournament. Talk about their mindset going into this weekend.

The mindset is very simple – you go into it with a "fresh start feel." Like the women in the fall, they'll go into it first saying "let's see what we can do in doubles." They want to prove themselves and put on a good performance against a solid team like Grand Valley in the first round. Doubles is so crucial for us and if you can get to a good start you can really build momentum in that match. There are a couple of points from when we played Grand Valley earlier we want back, and doubles will be crucial for us.