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Surprising tennis team eyes HL win
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YSU tennis coach Mark Klysner
Special to the Vindicator
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Tariq Ismail of the YSU men’s tennis team prepares to return the ball. Coach Mark Klysner has reenergized the progam, relying on a young roster with an international flair. Tariq and his brother Zeeshan are from Zimbabwe, and Rodrigo Campos and Felipe Rosa are from Brazil. The other two players, Max Schmerin and Rob Emig, are Pennsylvania natives.
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
Over the past few months, as YSU’s men’s tennis team won its first two league matches in more than five years — and came close to winning a few others — Penguins coach Mark Klysner usually got the same response from opposing coaches.
“They’d say, ‘wow,’” said Klysner, who is in his first season with the program. “Usually they looked at our matches as kind of a gimme.
“The consensus was that this was not the same YSU tennis team.”
The Penguins (6-12, 2-5) defeated Detroit 5-2 on Sunday to earn a berth in this weekend’s Horizon League meet, which is limited to the conference’s top six teams. They will play Wright State, which beat YSU by a somewhat misleading 6-1 margin on April 10.
“It’s definitely a good sign for the program,” Klysner said of qualifying for the tournament. “It helps with recruiting and just the overall perception of the program.
“In the fall, it wasn’t that we didn’t think we could make the conference tournament, it’s just that we knew a lot of pieces would have to fall into place to be there.”
YSU had just five players for its first meeting with Wright State and was forced to default two matches. Two of the singles losses went to three sets and the Penguins lost a pair of doubles matches 9-8.
“We feel like we could have won that match, so we think if we go in there and play well — which we have been lately — it wouldn’t be far-fetched for us to pull off a first-round upset,” Klysner said.
YSU is 1-15 all-time in Horizon League tournament matches, with the lone win coming against the Raiders in the consolation bracket two years ago. The regular season hasn’t been much better; the Penguins won just three league matches in nine years before this season.
But Klysner has energized the program, relying on a young roster with an international flavor.
Two players hail from Zimbabwe (brothers Tariq and Zeeshan Ismail, who play No. 1 and No. 4 singles, respectively), and two from Brazil (Rodrigo Campos and Felipe Rosa). The other players are from Pennsylvania (Max Schmerin and the lone senior, Rob Emig).
“All the credit goes to the guys,” said Klysner, who already has a couple commitments for next year’s class. “From August until now, I don’t remember a group of guys working harder on the courts.
“It’s nice to see that work paying off in the end. They definitely earned their way to the tournament.”