After breaking its 0-8 start with four straight wins, the men’s tennis team has taken a step back.
Coming off a 7-0 defeat to Penn, Friday night’s 7-0 loss to Binghamton was the second straight shutout loss for the Owls.
Temple lost the doubles point in a couple of close tiebreakers. After Binghamton secured the doubles point, the Owls were never able to get on the board.
Coach Steve Mauro said he felt Binghamton, ranked No. 75 in the nation, was a good test for Temple.
“I actually think they’re a bit better than [their ranking],” Mauro said.
Mauro also said Binghamton was supported on by a large contingent of fans.
“It was a great atmosphere,” Mauro added. “There were a lot of people watching. It would be great to have that kind of support.”
Temple saw its record drop to 4-10 on the spring season and in eight of its 10 losses, the Owls have failed to record more than one point.
Maintaining positive vibes was one of Mauro’s strong suits during the Owls’ early season struggles, so Mauro said his message to his team afterwards wasn’t hard.
“I told them even though the score was 7-0 we competed with one of the better teams in the country,” Mauro said.
The Owls will look to get things going back in the right direction on Thursday when they travel to Lehigh.
“The guys are still really optimistic,” Mauro said.
Much like the men’s team on Friday night, the women’s team fell behind early on dropping the doubles point to Binghamton. Temple gained an early advantage toward gaining the lead in the match as Alicia Doms and Minami Okajima won their match 8-3. But the Owls could not secure the doubles point.
“We were up in doubles and I don’t really know what happened,” Mauro said. “We just didn’t finish the doubles point. That was really disappointing.”
This disappointing start to the match seemed to set the tone as Temple appeared to be rather deflated the rest of the way, Mauro said.
“In singles, we didn’t have a lot of energy,” Mauro said.
Temple had a long drive to Binghamton and the match did not start until later in the day and ended in the evening hours. Mauro said the grueling day wore on his team and got the better of them.
“It was a long day,” Mauro said. “I think it’s just a one-match thing.
It appeared as if Temple showed signs of bouncing back with a 6-1 win against Lehigh earlier in the week. But the loss to Binghamton was the Owls’ seventh loss in their last nine matches. Temple now sits at 4-8 after a 2-1 start to the season.
Temple will now have a week off before its next match against Penn. Temple will be tested playing the 6-3 Penn team on the road.
“It’s going to be a challenged to play them at their place,” Mauro said.
Greg Frank can be reached at Greg.Frank@Temple.edu and on twitter @g_frank6.
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