Men's Tennis | March 18

DeKALB, Ill. – The Northern Illinois University men's tennis team has two conference matches at home this weekend, beginning with Buffalo at 1 p.m. on Thursday and Toledo at 11 a.m. on Saturday. Thursday's match will be at the Nelson Tennis Center at Chick Evans Field House and admission is free.

The Huskies (11-5, 2-1 MAC) have seen their share of close matches recently with the last three all ending by score of 4-3. NIU defeated Western Michigan for the first time since 2015 last Thursday while ending up on the wrong side of 4-3 matches against Ball State and Drake.

Nikola Puntaric (Ljubljana, Slovenia / Tulsa) went 3-0 in singles, moving to 12-1 on the dual season. Iker Gaztambide Arrastia (Pamplona, Spain / Jesuitas) and Federico Scotuzzi (Bergamo, Italy / North Alabama) each went 2-1 through the three matches.

Gaztambide Arrastia was ranked No. 63 in the latest ITA DI Men's Tennis Rankings, the first NIU player to crack the rankings since 2015 and the first singles player to be ranked since at least 2010.

The Opponents
Buffalo (9-4, 3-0 MAC) is the leader in the conference standings to this point in the season, with Mid-Amercian Conference wins over Ball State, Toledo and Western Michigan. The Bulls have won seven of their last eight matches coming into DeKalb. Clement Mainguy and Theodoros Mitsakos have won back-to-back MAC Doubles Team of the Week honors.

Toledo (5-10, 0-3 MAC) has dropped its last four matches, falling 4-3 to Buffalo in its last time out. The Rockets will face UIC on Thursday before visiting the Huskies on Saturday. Cole Cozens holds the best singles record for Toledo and is 8-2 in the last 10 matches, including a 6-2 record at No. 3 this season.