Hanover Park, Ill. -- The start of the 2025 campaign finally arrived for the Thunder men's tennis team on Friday, as Wheaton took the quick drive up to Centre Court Athletic Club to host the Milwaukee School of Engineering Raiders for a non-conference matchup. Facing off against MSOE at the start of its season for the third year running, Wheaton maintained its perfect record against the NACC side in these matches with a 5-2 victory this evening. The Thunder are now 1-0 on the young season, while MSOE falls to 0-3 having already played two matches last fall.
Under the new Division III pilot scoring model for 2024-25, the three doubles fixtures in every non-conference match will collectively yield one point for the team that captures at least two of the three contests. Wheaton earned the point from tonight's doubles matches thanks to a confident 6-2 victory in the first position by the veteran duo of
Tim Steiner and
Jacob Williams and a hard-fought 7-5 win at #3 doubles via
Evan Walther and
Andrew Winters.
MSOE leveled the score at 1-1 with a victory in the #1 singles match, but Williams earned his second victory of the day with a straight-set 6-3, 6-0 win at #2 singles. Walther joined his senior teammate on two match wins with a gritty comeback victory in his #3 singles contest, dropping the first set before winning the second at 6-1 and taking the subsequent ten-point tiebreak, 10-6.
Corin Tang's #5 singles score was nearly identical to Williams', with the junior capturing the first frame, 6-4, before bageling his Raiders rival in the second.
Andrew Jang earned a point for Wheaton with his #4 singles victory, cruising past his opponent, 6-2, 6-1.
With a successful season opener now behind them, the Thunder players will turn their attention to their next annual competition, the UW-Whitewater Warhawk Invite. Wheaton will travel to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin next weekend for three matches over two days, with the squad facing the invitational hosts on Friday afternoon before taking on Grinnell College and Luther College on Saturday, February 8th.
