Feb. 24, 2011
No. 67 Northwestern (7-3, 0-0 Big Ten) vs. Western Michigan (6-4, 0-0 MAC)
Friday, Feb. 25
Combe Tennis Center
Evanston, Ill. 6 p.m. CT
Live Stats: NUsports.com
EVANSTON, Ill. -- With wins in three of its last four matches, Northwestern looks for another nonconference victory when it welcomes MAC foe Western Michigan to the Combe Tennis Center at 6 p.m. Friday.
The match marks Northwestern's first of two High School Night events during which all fans will be able to receive free pizza during the intermission between singles and doubles play. Also during that break, fans can take part in a serving contest on the court and have the chance to win great Northwestern tennis prizes as well as an Apple iPod, and the 'Cats will also be raffling off a tennis racket to the evening's Fan of the Match winner.
Admission and parking for all Northwestern men's tennis matches are free for all fans.
Western Michigan (6-4) arrives in Evanston aiming to snap a three-match losing skid, the tail-end of which was a 7-0 sweep at the hands of another Big Ten opponent in Iowa. The Broncos have won just over 62 percent of their dual singles matches this season but have struggled for consistency at the top of the lineup, where Michael Calderone and Kazuya Komada have combined to go 5-5 on the No. 1 line.
Last season, the Wildcats and Broncos hooked up in Evanston on Feb. 7 when Northwestern claimed a 5-2 win despite missing its top singles player in Joshua Graves. Tobias Reitz and Spencer Wolf clinched a doubles sweep with a tiebreaker win at the No. 1 spot to help NU hand Western Michigan its first loss in eight matches to start the 2010 season.
Most recently, the Wildcats improved to 7-3 on the year with a doubleheader sweep of Northern Illinois and Western Illinois, bouncing back from what was a hard-fought defeat against 28th-ranked Vanderbilt. Senior Andrew McCarthy played a lead role in NU's success last weekend and was named one of NU's Hilton Garden Inn Athletes of the Week for his efforts. McCarthy extended his singles winning streak to four matches in a stellar weekend in which he won matches at the No. 2, 3 and 4 singles lines and also won a pair of matches while playing at the No. 1 doubles spot for the first time this season. He is now 7-2 in singles and 8-2 in doubles in his senior campaign.
Looming on the horizon for Northwestern is a weekend spent traveling to Oklahoma and Notre Dame March 4 and 6, respectively.
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