STEUBENVILLE, Ohio—The Baron tennis team had a busy day competing in two conference matches in a matter of hours. What could have been a daunting task turned into dominant performance with the Barons winning against the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford 8-1 in the morning and sweeping the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg 9-0 in the afternoon.

"It's just been a great day," head coach Jeremy Ellis said.

The day started at Franciscan's home courts playing against Bradford in the blistery cold wind. FUS attained its season long goal of sweeping doubles and carried that momentum into an even more competitive singles play.

"We won all three doubles and that's what we want to do," Ellis said. " The tightest one was No. 3 doubles and we pulled that one out which is great competition."

No. 1 doubles, Paul Jarzynka and Zachary Quiza, won 8-0 and No. 2 doubles, Luke Merry and David Freytag, also smoothly grabbed a 8-3 win.

It took a little more of battle for No. 3 doubles, Robert Butcher and Joseph Staniszewski but they still pulled out an 8-6 win.

Next up was singles play but due to the cold and windy weather they shortened the matches to eight game pro sets, upping the pressure for focused play early.

"Shortening the matches means you've got to go out and start strong and everyone did," Ellis said.

The team won all but one of the singles matches, Jarzynka 8-3, Quiza 8-0, Freytag 8-4, Merry 8-0, and Staniszewski 8-2. Ellis said that Quiza's match was crucial for the team.

"Quiza pulled it together," Ellis said. "The kid he played beat Greensburg yesterday so that was a pivotal match for us to win to give us an insight into what our next match is going to look like."

The Baron No. 3 doubles win also gave insight into how their match in the afternoon would go as Bradford's No. 3 doubles team had also beat Greensburg the day before.

The FUS team battled the wind a few days earlier but after the excessive wind and cold of the morning's match decided to move its second match of the day, against Greensburg, to an indoor facility.

Going into the match the Barons were ready to put up a fight against a tough conference opponent in Greensburg, who also held an undefeated conference record heading into the match. As shown in the 9-0 final score, FUS held their own.

"To start it out we won all three doubles which is what I wanted to do and what we've been able to do so far," Ellis said. "Going into a match 3-0 gives a lot of confidence."

Jarzynka and Quiza went 8-1, Merry and Freytag also won 8-1 and Butcher and Staniszewski swept their opponents with a 8-0 win.

"All the players saw who they were going to play singles against in doubles and then they just handed it to them in doubles," Ellis said. "So it gave them the confidence where all we had to do was win two of the singles to win. Everyone felt confident going into their singles matches."

From top to bottom the Barons were ready to show their depth as multiple players had exceptional matches. The most shocking of the day was sophomore Robert Butcher and his come back.

Butcher lost the first set, won the second and then went into the super tie breaker. In the tiebreaker he was down 4-9, just one point away from losing the first set match break and didn't let it happen. He won 7 straight points to clench an 11-9 victory.

"The best pull out today was Rob 'The Remedy' Butcher," Ellis said. "He just stay focused and grinded the points out. At the moment being down 4-9 there's nothing really I can do except let him stay focused and he proved his mental toughness."

Senior Jarzynka at No. 1 singles was prepared to shut down his opponent as he won handily against Greensburg's No. 1 6-4, 6-4. Quiza also took on his opponent with confidence as he won 6-0. 6-1.

"Those two were obviously really good matches," Ellis said. "Paul didn't let him get any rhythm at all as he served and volleyed really well. Quiza didn't even let his kid play. He played insane, he played like he should be able to play every match."

The last person on the courts was Staniszewski who also pulled out a close match ending 6-2, 5-7, 11-9 to push the team to the 9-0 sweep.

After a long exciting day the Barons are now 5-0 in the AMCC with their next conference match against Penn St. - Behrend, Franciscan opponent in last season's conference finals, on Sunday April 13.

"We don't want to go in over confident but the way the way the guys are playing right now, they're playing really well," Ellis said. "We want to take this conference. We're looking ahead. We have to play Behrend next Sunday which we're ready for."

Before that the team has a few non-conference matches starting with a home match versus The College of Wooster on Tuesday April 8 at 3:30 p.m.