On Saturday, in a nail biter against Augustana College (Ill.) at the UW-Madison Nielsen Tennis Stadium, the UW-Eau Claire men’s tennis team came out on top with a 5-4 victory.

Head coach Tom Gillman said he thinks his team has overcome a major growth process and shown poise in close matches.

“Over the season we have demonstrated a growth process,” Gillman said. “Being in many close matches throughout the year already, there isn’t so much a shock factor for our guys anymore.”

The Blugolds struggled in doubles for the first time all season dropping all three matches, but won five out of six singles matches to make up the deficit.

Senior Ryan Vande Linde said getting swept in doubles is something the team isn’t used to, but mentally the team was able to overcome it.

“Our coach always tells us to be tough to beat and I just think we exemplified that this weekend,” Vande Linde said. “Losing all 3 doubles matches is something we are not accustomed to, but we’re so mentally tough, I don’t think we let it bother us.”

The whole match came down to No. 1 singles with senior Ryan Vande Linde taking the court with it all on the line tied up 4-4. Vande Linde was successful in the important match and prevailed 6-2, 2-6, 6-3, to notch the Blugolds the 5-4 victory.

Gillman said fundamentally the team has been sound, but a big thing they have worked on is having faith in their movement on the court in order to work the opponent.

Another notable in singles was freshman Will Weyenberg, who won his match 6-0, 6-2 at No. 5 singles. He gave up the fewest amount of points in singles during the day.

Weyenberg said he attributes all the hard work in practice for his individual success as well as the team’s overall success in play this year.

“One of the reasons I have been successful in singles this year has been the highly competitive practices,” Weyenberg said. “We have an incredibly deep team that works hard in practice, so that guys like me can get a high level of competition every day in practice.”

The Blugolds are now 11-5 on the season and have won six straight while Augustana drops to 8-7.

Vande Linde said he believes the success the team has had this season after winning six in a row is something they have been expecting.

“I think this type of success is something we’ve always expected to have,” Vande Linde said.  “We know we should be a nationally relevant team, and we’ve known this since the beginning.”

The Blugolds will be in action next weekend facing three opponents — two at home and one on the road. They will be at the College of St. Scholastica (Minn.) on Friday before hosting St. Ambrose (Iowa) on Saturday and St. Cloud State (Minn.) on Sunday.