Lake Geneva, Wis. -- The Thunder men's tennis team returned to the Lake Geneva Tennis courts this morning for the second of its three matches at UW-Whitewater's invitational, this time facing off against 32nd-ranked Grinnell College. The Pioneers won today's contest by a score of 5-2 to maintain their unbeaten start to the season. Wheaton will finish its weekend slate with a matchup against Luther College at 6 PM this evening.
Just as nationally-ranked Whitewater did yesterday, Grinnell took all three doubles fixtures from the Thunder to secure the opening point on the scoreboard. Wheaton's #1 and #2 doubles pairings came close to earning victories in their matches but ultimately fell 7-5 and 7-6 [9-7], respectively.
The Pioneers got the three wins they needed from singles play to claim the team victory this morning, but the Thunder did well to walk away with two points on the board.
Andrew Winters triumphed in his competitive #6 singles battle to secure his first match win of the new season at a 7-5, 6-4 line. Doubles partner
Evan Walther was responsible for Wheaton's other point, also grinding out a 7-5 win in the first frame before eventually winning a dramatic third-set tiebreak at 11-9 to take his #3 singles match.
The Thunder will look to end their weekend on a high note when they turn right around to face the Luther Norse tonight.
Lake Geneva, Wis. -- Rounding off its weekend schedule in Wisconsin on Saturday evening, the Thunder men's tennis team took to the courts for the third and final time to face off against the Luther College Norse for the fifth season running. Just as eight of their previous ten meetings have been, tonight's contest was once again decided by a single point, as the side from Iowa eventually claimed a hard-fought 4-3 win in dramatic fashion. Luther's record is now 2-2 on the season, while Wheaton drops to 1-3 having faced strong opponents at this weekend's invitational.
The Thunder earned their first doubles match win of the weekend in tonight's contest courtesy of
Andrew Winters and
Evan Walther, who bested their #3 doubles opponents, 6-4. But this was not enough to prevent the Norse from securing the point that would ultimately separate the two teams on the scoreboard, as Luther posted wins in the #1 and #2 doubles fixtures.
Doubles partners
Tim Steiner and
Jacob Williams each earned victories in their singles competitions via tiebreak this evening. Steiner won the first set of his #1 singles match, 6-3, before claiming a 10-5 win in the extra game, while Williams came back from a set down in his #2 singles contest to win the second frame, 6-2, and rode this momentum to a 10-8 tiebreak result.
Corin Tang grabbed his second singles victory of the weekend at the #5 spot, also triumphing thanks to a tiebreaker. The junior captured the first set of his match at 6-2 and pulled out a 10-7 win in the decisive frame to account for Wheaton's third point of the night. But unfortunately for the Thunder, Luther edged out their Illinois opponents by a single tally after also winning three of the six singles contests tonight, two of which were decided in a third-set tiebreak, reflecting the even nature of Saturday's matchup.
Wheaton will now step away from competition for two weeks before it returns to action on Saturday, February 22nd when the team hosts Concordia University Wisconsin for a 3 PM match at Centre Court.
