The UW Oshkosh men’s tennis team spent the weekend at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota for the ITA Midwest Regional Championships.

The Titans’ season does not start until January with matches beginning in February, but new head coach James Lewison said the time to prepare is now.

“I feel like our season is already starting with this past tournament,” Lewison said.

Over the weekend, six players competed in singles including freshman Adam Hawley, sophomore Austin Laumb, freshman Jordan Andersen, freshman David Leffler, freshman Matthew Brooks and freshman Billy O’Connell.

The three doubles teams were Andersen and Brooks, Leffler and O’Connell and Hawley and sophomore Adam Martin.

“The team looks great,” Laumb said. “We had our best ITA and Midwest open outing in the past five or so years.”

Lewison said he was nervous about taking over the team, but now he realizes he has a great group of men.

“My main concern when I took over the position was that the players wouldn’t be motivated knowing the program is coming to an end,” Lewison said. “But they have been working so hard, and that allowed them to have success at the ITA tournament.”

The doubles team of Andersen and Brooks were the only players to advance to the second day of competition, but Lewison said he believes the rest of the men did just as well. “There were others that came close to advancing to the second day, so I was pleased,” Lewison said.

Lewison was hired only two weeks prior to the tournament, not leaving him a lot of time to get to know the team, but Lewison said that didn’t bother him at all.

“My number one priority for this season as coach is that the players have the most fun and the most opportunities to compete as possible,” Lewison said. “I know that the players, as well as myself, are disappointed in the decision to cut the men’s tennis program at the end of the season, so we are all using that as motivation to do a phenomenal job.”

Laumb said the team is focused despite not having a coach until the week before competition and facing a program cut at the end of the school year.

“The team started training and hitting a week before the school year on our own because of not having a coach,” Laumb said. “We hit and run drills for around an hour and a half to two hours while going to the gym on our own time.”

Since the season doesn’t start until February, Gorski said the team will continue to train through the winter interim.

“We have been practicing every day we can,” Gorski said. “We set a time as a team to make sure we have all been hitting together even during the time we didn’t have a coach.”