The Basics
Drake men's tennis is set to kick off its Spring campaign with three matches this weekend. The Bulldogs will travel to Lincoln, Nebraska for a match against the Nebraska Cornhuskers at 11 a.m. on Saturday, before returning home to the Roger Knapp Tennis Center on Sunday for a 9 a.m. match against Saint Louis University and a 2:30 p.m. date with Grand View. First-year Bulldog head coach
Justin Stuckey heads into Spring with a much different Drake team than last year—only three players returned from the 2023-24 season. But the new-look team got exposure in the fall.
Head Coach Justin Stuckey's Outlook
"The guys had a lot of match play in the fall. We have a mix of different levels of opponents we are playing this spring and are lucky to have a mix of players as well—from a Senior in
Will Ecklund to several freshmen on the team. I'm fired up to see what this group can do as we kick off the season this weekend."
Bulldog Roster Breakdown
The 2023-24 season was the end of an era for Drake men's tennis, with six seniors graduating. Stuckey will usher in a new era of men's tennis at Drake, starting in earnest this weekend. The three returners from last year's Summit League runners-up team are sophomores
Ben Johnson and
Aaron Dawson, and senior
Will Ecklund, who's been on the team since the 2021-22 season. Johnson and Dawson are both United Kingdom natives who signed ahead of the Spring campaign last year. Johnson had an impressive fall in 2024 for the Bulldogs, winning the main draw at the Knapp Invite and garnering status as an Athlete to Watch by the Summit League.
New to the team this year are
Jose Alessandro Hernandez,
Cowen Lau,
Adan Tarquino,
Logan Tomovski and
Christian Winstead. Tarquino and Tomovski are the most recent additions to the roster, signing with Drake earlier in January. Both freshman, Tarquino came out of Las Vegas, Nevada as a 3-star recruit and Tomovski from South Carolina as a 4-star recruit and a 5-time All-State performer. Alessandro Hernandez, Lau and Winstead signed with Drake before the fall season. Winstead and Lau broke even in fall singles play, going 4-4 and 3-3 respectively, while Alessandro Hernandez had a winning record of 5-4.
Scouting the Competition
The first opponent the Bulldogs will square off against is the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a team that went 17-10 last season. Ending that year, the Cornhuskers defeated the University of Illinois 4-2 in the first round of the Big Ten tournament but lost to the No. 1 ranked Ohio State in the semifinals. For this season, Nebraska senior Calvin Mueller was named a Big Ten Preseason Player to Watch after winning 27 singles matches last season. The Bulldogs will look to increase their all-time advantage over Nebraska this weekend, carrying an 8-6 win-loss record over the Cornhuskers.
After the day trip to Nebraska, the Bulldogs host the Saint Louis Billikens at home on Sunday at 9 a.m. This will be the first men's tennis meeting between the two schools since 2012, and Drake will look to maintain a spotless 5-0 record over SLU. Last season, under the coaching of Drake's new coach Stuckey, SLU went 15-5 and won a match in the Atlantic 10 Conference Championship. In Stuckey's time at SLU, he amassed a 59-33 record coaching the women and a 53-39 record coaching the men.
After a short rest, the Bulldogs will hop back into action against the cross-town Grand View Vikings, an NAIA school. This is the first-ever match between Drake and Grand View, despite the two school's proximity. Grand View, however, participated in the Knapp Invite this past fall, so the two teams have some familiarity.
Up Next
The Bulldogs will travel to Wichita, Kansas for a match against the Wichita State Shockers at 9 a.m. on Sunday, January 26.
