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AUSTIN, Texas -To secure a share of its 11th Big 12 regular-season title, the 15th-ranked Baylor men's tennis team took care of 19th-ranked Texas, 6-1, on Wednesday night at the Penick-Allison Tennis Center.
"This was a great win for us as we try to get better with each match," head coach Matt Knoll said. "You want to get off to a good start. You also want to keep your concentration and I think we struggled a little bit with that today. I think you start looking at the scoreboard and start seeing that things are going well and you get out of the moment a little bit."
Baylor (18-4, 4-0) has now won eight straight matches over Texas (14-7, 2-2) in Austin with the last loss for the Bears in Austin coming on April 22, 1999. Overall, BU has won six of the last seven matches against Texas. In the Big 12 era, Baylor owns an 18-9 series advantage over the Longhorns.
The match was scheduled to get underway at 6 p.m., but was delayed an hour due to rain in the area. However, once play got underway, the Bears were quick to take control of the match.
Baylor opened the match by winning its fifth straight doubles point and remaining undefeated in doubles competition during conference play.
To open BU's 61st-ranked doubles pairing of Diego Galeano and Mate Zsiga got past Ben Chen and Daniel Whitehead 8-5 on court one. The Baylor tandem broke UT on its first service chance and then the contest remained on serve the rest of the way. Galeano and Zsiga improved to 4-0 in conference play and are currently riding a five-match win streak.
When the match on No. 1 wrapped, Julian Lenz and Tony Lupieri were ahead of Lloyd Glasspool and Soren Hess-Olsen, 7-5, on court 3. The Baylor duo went on to earn an 8-6 victory to cinch up the doubles point.
With the point on the board for Baylor, Texas' Chris Camillone and Sudanwa Sitaram posted a 9-8(6) victory over Roberto Maytin and Patrick Pradella in the No. 2 spot.
Baylor remained in control heading into singles action getting early 5-2 leads on courts four and six, and matching 4-1 leads on court one and two.
After going down 3-1 in the first set, Maytin managed to fight back and win 11 straight games to take the first singles point with a 6-3, 6-0 victory over David Holiner at the No. 6 spot to give the Bears a 2-0 advantage in the match.
The 35th-ranked Pradella was the next Baylor player to secure a victory. His 6-2, 6-4 win on court one over 40th-ranked Hess-Olesen gave the Bears a 3-0 advantage in the match.
Lupieri, ranked No. 84, clinched the match winning point with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Sitaram in No. 4 singles. The win extends his win streak to nine matches.
With the match in hand, No. 66 Zsiga secured the fifth point for Baylor with a 6-4, 6-2 win on court three over No. 93 Daniel Whitehead. Galeano made it a 6-0 BU lead as downed Nick Naumann, 6-3, 6-7(4), 1-0 (7), at the No. 5 spot.
To close out the match, Texas got its lone point as Glasspool got past No. 43 Lenz in the No.2 spot, 7-6(3), 7-6(6).
The Bears have now won 10 of the last 12 regular-season titles and will have a chance to claim the crown outright with a win over No. 37 TCU on Sunday. That match is slated to begin at 6 p.m.at the Hurd Tennis Center. Sunday night will be Senior Night and Roberto Maytin will be honored between singles and doubles competition.
Baylor has already locked up the No. 1 seed at next week's Big 12 Championship in Norman, Okla.
To stay up to date with the team all season follow @BaylorMTennis on Twitter.