SMU sophomore Gaston Cuadranti serves the ball during doubles play against UC Santa Barbara at Turpin Tennis Stadium. (SPENCER EGGERS/The Daily Campus)

The Mustangs traveled to Houston this past weekend to take on the Rice Owls. Rice won the match 5-2 to make SMU’s final season record 16-8 and 3-2 in conference play. The Mustangs were ranked 59 going into the match and the Owls were 42.

First up was doubles where the Owls won all three lines.

First off the court was the number one duo of Tobias Flood and Joseph Hattrup against Oscar Podlewski and Harry Fowler. The Rice tandem defeated the Mustangs 8-4.

Next finished was Adham El-Effendi and Darren Walsh who took their match to a tie breaker, but just couldn’t quite seal the deal and lost 7-5 in the breaker to Christian Saraavia and Michael Nuesslein.

Last done was the No. 88 pairing of Artem Baradach and Gaston Cuadranti who also lost in a tie breaker 7-3.

Next up was the singles play where the Mustangs took two of the six matches and there were a few three setters.

Mischa Nowicki made quick work of his opponent Saravia and won 6-4, 6-1. No. 44 Baradach also won his match in a third set against No. 96 Harry Fowler. The final score was 6-2, 4-6, 6-2. This was Baradach’s second match back since being injured, and first victory coming off a loss against TCU last week.

Cuadranti also battled a close match against Oscar Podlewski. They went to a tiebreaker for the second set but then Podlewski capitalized in the second to win 7-6 (7-2), 6-2.

The last third set for the afternoon and the final one to finish was Flood against Nuesslein. Flood won the first set 6-1 lost the second 6-4 and the third 6-1.

This was the last regular season match and now the Mustangs have a short break before traveling to Tulsa this coming Easter weekend for the Conference USA Championships.

After the C-USA tournament is a long break and then comes the NCAA tournament at Stanford. This is a tournament players must each qualify for, and last year Baradach participated and he along with the rest of the team has that goal in their minds for the weekend ahead.