After the Ohio State freshmen in courts 3 and 4 dropped their first sets, the No. 15 Buckeyes had to wait patiently to see if they could pull out the match with the No. 24 Clemson Tigers.

Devin Mullings was up 5-4 in court 4 and had a chance at a triple-break point against Clemson’s Jarmaine Jenkins. Had he have grabbed the point, it would have given him the first set. Mullings failed to do so, however, and eventually lost the set in a tie-breaker.

“I got off to a slow start. I had three set points I didn’t convert on, but I felt it was good because I kept my composure and finished the match off,” Mullings said.

Court 4 was the second singles court to finish Saturday and the match ended in the Buckeyes favor. Mullings came back and won, 6-7, 6-4, 6-2.

OSU coach Ty Tucker said he thought Mullings showed a lot of heart.

“Usually when a guy loses a triple-set point it is pretty much done for the day,” Tucker said. “He came back and kept digging though.”

Mullings wasn’t the only Buckeye to drop his first set. Courts 1 and 3 fell behind but also came back to win the second and third sets.

The longest match of the evening occurred between No. 1 senior Jeremy Wurtzman and Clemson’s Goran Sterijovski. The two battled through the first set forcing it to a tie-breaker. After Wurtzman dropped that set, he changed the way he was playing the match.

“In the second set I started playing a little more aggressive and started coming (in court) more,” Wurtzman said. “(In the first set) I was playing a little too defensive, and he was attacking my ball, so I decided that I was going to attack him before he attacked me.”

Sterijovski struggled to adjust to the new style of play Wurtzman displayed after the first set. Fatigue also started to set in because the Tigers had played Toledo in Jesse Owens West Recreational Center earlier in the day, and Sterijovski had played court 1 in that match as well.

“In the first set he tried the high spins and high balls, and those are the type of balls I’m pretty comfortable with,” Sterijovski said. “When we got comfortable with each other was when the real trouble started for me. He was always on the ball, and he was always punching me.”

With the changes Wurtzman made, he was able to break Sterijovski in the second and third sets. This gave him what he needed to grab OSU’s fifth point of the day with a 6-7, 6-4, 6-4 victory.

Sterijovski was unaware Wurtzman was ranked No. 1 when the two picked up their tennis racquets and stepped on the court.

“I do not pay attention to who I’m playing, what he is ranked or whether he is seeded in a tournament,” Sterijovski said. “When I walk on a court we are equal and during the match we are going to see who is better. Today that was him.”

It was freshman Chris Klingemann who clinched the match for the Buckeyes. After winning the doubles point, OSU needed at least three singles matches to win. Klingemann was that third match winner in court 3. He also came back from being down a set.

Klingemann was playing his fourth match as a Buckeye after joining the team Jan. 26. He has stepped up into the No. 2 and 3 court positions so far. Because Klingemann is from Florida, he said his biggest adjustment coming to OSU was playing on indoor courts. The indoor courts didn’t cause a problem in his second and third sets against Clemson’s Damiisa Robinson as Klingemann came back to win the match, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.

“I thought I was making some bad mistakes in the first set. I was making unforced errors, and my first serve percentage was pretty low,” Klingemann said. “The second set I just stepped it up and made more returns. I just went on top of (Robinson), and it was pretty easy from there on out.”

OSU jumped out to an early lead when the No. 38 doubles team of sophomores Scott Green and Ross Wilson defeated the No. 17 tandem of Nathan Thompson and Jarmaine Jenkins 8-1, and OSU’s Joey Atas and Dennis Mertens took court 3 to secure the doubles point.

In the 6-1 match victory Clemson’s only point came on court 6 when Ryan Young defeated Green in straight sets, 6-4, 6-0.

Court 2 was decided in three sets with OSU freshman Joey Atas defeating No. 31 Thompson 6-2, 6-7, 6-2. OSU sophomore Dennis Mertens took court 5 with a 6-3, 6-4 win.

“To beat the 24th-ranked team in the country and to do it with three freshmen and three sophomores in an eight-person starting rotation is pleasing,” Tucker said. “But if I am going to get all happy and smile, I can’t. It’s real early in the season, and we have got to get better every week.”

The Buckeyes used the match as a positive rebound to their first season loss against No. 21 Georgia.

“We can always say we should have or could have won against Georgia,” Klingemann said. “To come out here against a good Clemson team, and to be down in a couple of matches and to come back and win those was huge for our confidence.”