BATON ROUGE — The No. 13-ranked Tigers’ 81-match win streak against in-state opponents was finally broken Wednesday in a 5-2 loss to No. 27 Tulane.
“We got off to a good start and won the doubles point,” said LSU assistant coach Mark Booras. “But Tulane got off to a good start in singles and got some momentum.”
LSU (13-4, 5-3 SEC) also lost a three-match win streak in their first non-conference match in four weeks.
The Tigers looked on track with wins on doubles courts No. 2 and No. 3. Cory Ross and Sebastian Rutka extended their record to 7-0 at the No. 2 spot. Ken Skupski and Peter Richman won their sixth straight match on No. 3.
But the Green Wave answered in singles by rolling off five wins. Their stars, 13th-ranked Michael Kogan and 79th-ranked Dmitriy Koch, got wins over LSU’s 28th ranked Ken Skupski and Jason Hazley on courts No. 1 and No. 2.
“I was surprised about how we got outplayed on four courts,” Booras said. “We just got out-competed on a couple of those courts.”
LSU will have two chances to recover in the next four days with matches at Arkansas on Friday and at Tulsa on Sunday.
“This shows us where we are and what we need to get to work on to be successful in the SEC and NCAA Tournaments,” Booras said.
LSU played Wednesday’s match without head coach Jeff Brown. Brown’s wife, Debi, gave birth Tuesday to the couple’s first child, Connor Gordon.
No. 27 Tulane 5, No. 13 LSU 2
Doubles:
1) #35 Kogan/Goulet (TU) def. #26 Fisher/Hazley (LSU): 8-6
2) #41 Ross/Rutka (LSU) def. Koch/Vasiljevic (TU): 8-3
3) Richman/Skupski (LSU) def. Angelinos/Hernandez (TU): 8-5
Singles:
1) #13 Michael Kogan (TU) def. #28 Ken Skupski (LSU): 6-2, 6-3
2) #79 Dmitriy Koch (TU) def. Jason Hazley (LSU): 7-6 (7-2), 6-1
3) Ted Angelinos (TU) def. Peter Richman (LSU): 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (7-3)
4) David Goulet (TU) def. Bryan Fisher (LSU): 6-2, 6-1
5) Jacobo Hernandez (TU) def. Sebastian Rutka (LSU): 6-3, 6-1
6) Cory Ross (LSU) def. Alberto Sottocorno (TU): 7-5, 3-6, 1-0 ret.