GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University men's tennis team claimed five of six set tie-breakers as Christian Albrechtsen won both of his matches to lead the Mavericks to their first win over a Pacific West foe since joining the league as an affiliate member in 2021 on Friday at the Junction Indoor Tennis Center.
 
The Mavericks lost two of the three doubles matches but rallied to win five of the six singles matches en-route to a very tight 5-2 indoor victory over the visiting Fresno Pacific University Sunbirds.
 
Friday's victory, keyed by the tie-breaker wins, allowed the Mavericks (3-8) to snap an 8-match slide and was the first of the spring portion of their season.  CMU is 1-3 against fellow PacWest foes this spring after going 0-8 against them last year.
 
FPU fell to 3-6 this season, the Sunbirds' first since 2014.
 
Albrechtsen and No. 2 doubles partner Tyler Landen claimed the Mavs' lone doubles victory, 6-4 over Martin Ramirez and Sven Bangert.  Minutes earlier, Pablo Zubieta and Gregor Kliimask had rallied from a 4-5 deficit to win the No. 3 match, 7-5.  Ben Cronau and Joshua Wong then sealed the doubles point with a 6-4 win at No. 1 over Steven Howe and Jandre van Wyk.
 
However, Howe answered back in singles, controlling his top-flight match with Cronau from the start, winning a pair of 6-3 sets.  That victory evened the dual at 1 before Jorge Abreu put the Mavericks ahead for good, claiming a 9-7 win in the second set breaker to win 6-3, 7-6 (9-7) at No. 3 singles over Wong.
 
Meanwhile, Albrechtsen closed out a 6-4, 7-6 (8-6) victory over Martinez in the second flight before Kliimask won a 3-set battle over Landen at No. 4 singles.  The first two sets of that match were decided in tie-breakers as the Maverick redshirt sophomore won the first 7-2 before the Estonian Sunbird evened the match with a 7-3 second-set tie-breaker win.  Kliimask then took the third set, 6-3.
 
With just four available courts inside the bubble, the dual then came down to the final two matches.
 
Leading 3-2 going into those, the Mavericks went on to clinch the historic win at No. 6 as freshman Tegan Hartman won the first-set tie-breaker, 7-2, before dominating Zubieta in the second set, 6-1.
 
Van Wyk then completed the dual with a tight 3-set, 6-0, 2-6, 7-6 (7-2) win over Bangert at No. 5 singles.
 
Brandon Keller also won a tight 3-set exhibition match, 6-3, 3-6, 1-0 (11-9) for the Mavs.
 
The two teams will meet again in just ten days (Mar. 21) in Fresno, California.  The Mavericks will also play against Western New Mexico in Denver on Tuesday, at 16^th-ranked Azusa Pacific next Saturday (Mar. 19) and against Holy Names in Fresno next Sunday (Mar. 20) before the re-match with the Sunbirds.