Going into this weekend wasn’t an easy task for the Arizona men’s tennis team.

The Wildcats traveled to Houston to meet their opponents and were defeated by No. 23 Rice University on Friday, 5-2, but came back with a win against No. 42 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Saturday, 6-1.

Friday started out looking like Arizona would finish with the victory after it won the doubles point. But from that point on, it was a different story.

UA freshman Jay Goldman grasped the only singles victory in the No. 2 spot, when he beat Rice’s No. 34 Christopher Muller.

The outcomes of the matches between the two days were like night and day.

“”I think (Rice) had a little more experience playing the top teams than we had,”” said sophomore Pat Metham. “”We went back (to the hotel) and got a lot of sleep, then regrouped well and did a similar thing (against TAMUCC), but we believed in ourselves a little more.””

Saturday’s match against TAMUCC began with Arizona winning the same doubles point as Friday, but it ended with the mirror image: The Wildcats won five out of their six singles matches.

After his previous victory over the highly ranked Rice player, Goldman came out strong with another win in the No. 2 spot, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.

Goldman still has an undefeated singles record.

“”It was a long match. It lasted over three hours,”” Goldman said. “”I just stuck it out the best I could and played for every point, but it was a dogfight.””