The Irish won their second match in a row Thursday, defeating Northwestern 7-0. The win puts the Irish record at 3-1.
Notre Dame opened the match on a high note winning all three doubles matches easily. Freshman Steven Havens and Andrew Roth defeated graduate student Alexander Thams and Peter Raspoli 8-3, at No. 2 doubles.
"The No. 2 doubles played well," head coach Bobby Bayliss said. "We needed to win the doubles point, and we did [Thursday]."
Brett Helgeson and Sheeva Parbhu also won their match 8-5 over Mark Dwyer and Alex Sanborn.
"They return as well as anybody, but they break down at net," Bayliss said. "They have made great improvement."
Freshman Tyler Davis and junior Santiago Montoya defeated Juan Gomez and freshman David Seyferth 8-6 in a tight match at No. 3 doubles.
The Irish dominated singles action again.
Helgeson played No. 1 singles and beat junior Mark Dwyer 6-3, 6-2.
The Irish took a commanding 3-0 lead when freshman Daniel Stahl defeated Seyferth 6-4, 6-3 but his coach saw some things he needs to work on in practice.
"Stahl needs to try and stay out of the middle of the court during his matches," Bayliss said.
With a win at no. 5 singles, the Irish clinched the match. Freshman David Anderson defeated senior Juan Gomez 7-5, 6-4.
Havens dropped the first set 6-2, to Rispoli, but rebounded in the second set to win 7-6 (2) in a tiebreak, and continued his dominance in the third set supertiebreak winning 10-2.
"Havens is a great ball striker," Bayliss said. "He still has a few things to learn strategically, but he's making significant strides."
At No. 2 singles Parbhu took the first set from Thams 6-4, but Thams fought back to force a second-set tiebreak. Parbhu came out on top in the tiebreaker 10-8.
Roth had a tough battle on his hands at the No. 3 slot against Sanborn. He took the first set 6-3, but dropped the second set 6-2. Roth took a 5-4 lead in the third set, but Sanborn battled back and made Roth serve for the third set. Roth pulled it out, winning the third set 6-4.
"Roth has a very determined work ethic, and that helped him a lot tonight," Bayliss said. "He has a big heart, and when he sinks his teeth into a match he doesn't let go. He makes the other guy battle through the entire match."
The Irish will travel to North Carolina to take on the Duke Blue Devils Sunday starting at 4 p.m.
