Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Salukis will face Northern Illinois on Friday
02/04/2016 | 12:00:00 | Men's Tennis
Tony McDaniel
SIUSalukis.com
ROCKFORD, Ill.-- Following a three-week hiatus, Southern Illinois' men's tennis team (2-1) will be back in action Friday against the Huskies of Northern Illinois (3-2).
NIU is coming off a great 2015 season in which the team posted an 18-6 record and won the Mid-American Conference Regular Season Championships. However, when the Huskies matched up with the Salukis last season, Southern defeated NIU 4-3 to hand NIU one of its six losses.
In recent history, the two teams have traded wins in close matches.
"We've had some really good matches with Northern in the past," said head coach Dann Nelson. "Last year was a thriller that we needed to play really, really well just to have a chance at winning that one. We know it's going to be a tough match. I expect our team to play good doubles and play up to our ability to fight hard for the point."
Scouting Northern Illinois: As of late, Northern Illinois has enjoyed plenty of success on the court. Last season the Huskies won the regular season MAC championship with a 4-1 record in the conference. The team fell short of qualifying for the NCAA tournament last year when it lost to Buffalo 4-2 in the semifinals of the MAC Championships in DeKalb. The team has not had a losing season since 2011.
NIU's roster is young; just three of its nine players are juniors or seniors. Frederic Cadieux, who played most of the team's matches at No. 1 singles, graduated at the end of the 2015 season, and senior Simon Formont, who posted a 4-5 record at No. 1 singles last season, is yet to make and appearance for the Huskies this season. The Huskies have coped well without last year's top-two singles players. The team is 3-2, posting wins over Wisconsin-Whitewater, Detroit and Eastern Illinois.
Patrick Fisher took the helm of the men's tennis program at Northern Illinois in 2009 and has been very successful. Fisher has won the Mid-American Conference Championship three times and was the MAC Coach of the Year in 2014. Fisher is 98-60 in his time with NIU.
Series history vs. Northern Illinois: Southern Illinois and Northern Illinois have met 23 times in the history of the two schools with Southern leading the all-time series 13-10. The two teams played in their first meeting in 1967 when SIU won 9-0. Southern would go on to win the next six meetings between the two teams; it is the longest win-streak in the history of the series. Since then the series has gone back and forth with neither team able to take an upper hand. In the last five meetings, Southern Illinois is 2-5. SIU's last win was in 2015 when the Salukis downed the Huskies 4-3. Southern would go on to finish the season 6-16 while NIU would finish the 2015 campaign as the regular season MAC Champions and post an 18-6 record.
Ranked Salukis: For the first time since 2012 SIU has a nationally ranked doubles team. Jonny Rigby and Michal Kianicka's outstanding play during the fall season garnered them national recognition. The duo is ranked 41st in the nation and fourth in the Central Region after posting a 7-2 record in the fall. Alex Pozo and Wilder Pimentel join Rigby and Kianicka in the regional rankings as the 7th ranked doubles pairing in the Central Region. Pimentel and Pozo were 4-0 in their first half-season playing together.
Fantastic fall season: Southern Illinois is coming off of one of its best tournament seasons in school history. The Salukis finished 72-33 in all of its combined singles and doubles matches throughout the fall. SIU took home five individual trophies from the Purdue Fall Invitational in September when SIU took home the Flight A and Flight B doubles and the Flight A singles title. The Salukis were also runners-up in the Flight C singles draw and Flight C doubles draw at the same tournament. Three players, Michal Kianicka, Peter Molloy and Wilder Pimentel finished the fall with nine wins in singles play, which is good enough for a six-way tie for sixth place on SIU's all-time fall singles wins list. The Salukis finished the fall season by going 15-0 against Eastern Illinois at the SIU Fall Classic.
Chasing records: SIU's top doubles team of Jonny Rigby and Michal Kianicka could go down as the best partnership in school history by the time Rigby finishes his playing career at the end of the season. Kianicka and Rigby are just six doubles wins away from breaking Mickey Maule and Fabiano Ramos's 26-year-old mark of 44 wins as a doubles team. Rigby already holds the school record for individual doubles wins with 56. Kianicka is just seven wins behind Rigby in fourth all-time with 49 wins. The duo is ninth all-time on SIU's doubles win percentage list with a mark of .760. Rigby will likely move into second on SIU's all-time singles and doubles wins list this season. Rigby currently has 119 wins and is only seven wins behind Fabiano Ramos's second-place mark of 126 wins.
Tremendous transfer: Prior to the start of the fall season SIU got a huge boost to its depth with the signing of junior Wilder Pimentel. Pimentel left Virginia Commonwealth University following a season in which he helped the Rams to the Atlantic-10 Conference finals against George Washington and earned a spot on the First Team All-Atlantic-10 Conference team. For SIU, Pimentel made an immediate impact winning the Flight B doubles draw at the Purdue Fall Invitational with his partner Alex Pozo. That duo's play earned them a ranking in the Oracle/ITA Division I Men's Tennis Central Region Rankings at the No. 7 spot. Pimentel finished the fall season a combined 13-5 in singles and doubles matches. He has already added his name to the SIU record book in his five months at the school. He is tied for sixth on SIU's all-time fall singles wins list.
Massive turnaround for Molloy: Sophomore Peter Molloy bounced back from a slow start to his collegiate career this fall with nine wins in singles matches. Molloy was just 2-1 last year in singles play during the tournament and 6-12 overall. Molloy's nine singles wins in the fall are more than he had combined all season in singles and doubles play in the 2014-15 season.
Players Mentioned
