It’s not always how you start, but how you finish, and the men’s Grand Valley State tennis team (7-9, 4-1 GLIAC) is trying to prove that point true as its season hits its spring stretch.

Earlier in the year, GVSU suffered a six-game losing skid, however, with two conference wins over the weekend, the Lakers are now 4-1 in GLIAC conference play.

The Lakers defeated the University of Findlay 7-2 on Saturday, and then proceeded to score a 6-3 victory over Tiffin University.

“This weekend we played very solid,” said head coach John Black. “We mixed up the doubles and I think they played strong. In singles, for the most part we got the wins where we needed to.”

GVSU jumped out to an early lead against Tiffin and never trailed in the match. No. 1 singles player sophomore Andrew Darrell forced his opponent to retire after jumping out to a 3-0 lead. He also scored a victory over Findlay’s David Collette when Collette retired in the third set.

“I think we have a lot of confidence,” Darrell said. “We are definitely in that stage where we are now getting to play the toughest teams in the conference. I think we’re ready to get some big wins that we’ll need to make nationals.”

GVSU’s confidence continues to grow with every win. As they hit the toughest part of their schedule, they feel like they’ve made the necessary improvements to compete with the strongest teams in the GLIAC.

“Now we are on a winning streak and we beat some good teams in our conference,” said senior Benny Delgado-Rochas, who scored a victory in his singles match against Tiffin. “We played some of the toughest teams in the nation in the beginning of the season, but after this winning streak, it seems like we are getting better and we are more confident with ourselves.”

GVSU still has to play the top three teams in the GLIAC in Wayne State University, Ferris State University and Northwood University. All three undefeated in the conference, but Northwood currently leads the pack and is undefeated overall at 8-0.

Black is still looking for his team to hit their potential by the time GVSU has to face their top conference foes.

“We need to keep improving the doubles,” he said. We’ve been improving, but we still got a ways to go, particularly with being aggressive and taking control of the net. With singles, we need to work on staying positive and not getting down ourselves if we miss a shot, and working on closing out matches and finishing out our opponents once we got the lead.”

The Lakers will next be in action Wednesday in a non-conference match against Hope College. This will be another opportunity for GVSU to work on things and prepare for the rest of their upcoming GLIAC schedule.

“We need to keep playing solid and taking it a point at a time and playing to our potential,” Darrell said. “I think we’re really talented and really good, and I think we can be good this year, but we will have to maximize our potential.”

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