As the youngest club team in the tournament, North Dakota State gained loads of experience at the United States Tennis Association Tennis On Campus National Championship last weekend.

NDSU didn’t fare well in the standings, finishing 60th out of 64 teams in Cary, N.C., but team captain Daniel Gunderson said the knowledge gained was tremendous.

“The Cary Tennis Park was by far the nicest place to play tennis that I have experienced,” Gunderson, an NDSU senior said. “The atmosphere was so inviting and fun with music playing all day long and many opportunities for prizes.”

The NDSU Club Tennis team played seven matches, losing to University of California, Berkley, University of Auburn and University of Illinois-Chicago in the first round of pool play.

With the rough start the NDSU Club team was placed in the copper bracket. It lost its first match to Iowa State but rallied and beat Lamar University.

After that the NDSU Club team faced off with Stony Brook University for a spot in the consolation championship but lost. The final match for the NDSU club team came against the University of Northern Colorado, and the Bears took care of business.

“We had a very tough pool with Auburn winning the national championship and University of California-Davis placing third in the silver bracket,” Gunderson said. “We had several close matches that were only decided by a handful of games so it would have been nice to pull those out.”

The NDSU Club team traveled to the tournament with four freshmen and two sophomores who Gunderson said “played very well this week.”

“There was no difference between the play of the younger players and the older players throughout the tournament,” Gunderson said. “We had no intentions of changing our lineup based on age, just who was more competitive at singles or doubles.”

The NDSU Club team will now focus on making it to the 2017 National Championship in Orlando.

Gunderson said the team does need to work on improving a few aspects of their game before competing at another national championship.

“I think the biggest thing for us moving forward is improving our consistency and conditioning so we can hang in the longer points,” Gunderson said about the team’s offseason schedule. “We also need to execute better with ending the point.”

Gunderson said that there were times where the team would have an opponent backed up against the wall but due to an error their opponent had the chance to fight back into the match.

With a young squad the NDSU Club team will look to continue to get better in the offseason.

“It was a great experience,” Gunderson said of the tournament. “(But) we are always practicing through the summer offseason and trying to improve.”