SURPRISE, Ariz.,- It was a battle from start to finish for the Fresno Pacific Sunbirds (4-13 overall) who ultimately fell to the #35 MSU Denver Roadrunners (15-4 overall) on Friday afternoon at the Surprise Tennis and Racquet Club.
 
The Sunbirds started off the match strong clinching the doubles point. The All PacWest Third Team Doubles Ben Cronau and Sven Bangert won 6-2 on court no. 2 and Gregor Kliimask and Martin Ramirez won 6-2 court no. 3.
 
Heading into singles, Bangert would continue his dominant form delivering a straight sets win 6-4, 6-4.
 
The Roadrunners countered back to go ahead 3-2 with three close third set match wins on courts 4, 5, and 3.
 
The deciding matches of the day came down to court 1 & 2. On court 2, Brodie Sodersten battled back from a 2-6 1st set loss to a 6-4 win in set 2. The fight continued in the 3^rd as the match headed into a final deciding tie breaker. Sodersten quickly found himself down 0-6 in the tiebreaker, but battled to win 8 straight points to win 8-6.
 
With the Sodersten win on court 2, the match came down to Cronau who was in a similar battle of his own on court 1.
 
Cronau started of hot with a 6-4 win in the 1^st, but the Mavs Juho Kantola quickly evened the score taking the 2^nd 6-4.  The match continued into a tightly contested 3^rd set, but it was Kantola who ultimately went ahead to take the 3^rd 6-4 to secure the Mavs victory 4-3.
 
On the day, Sodersten and Brodie battled together to save 9 straight match points in their respective matches.
 
The Sunbirds will look to wrap up the season on a high note on Saturday.
 
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