Hanover Park, Ill. -- Playing its first competitive match since March 22nd, the Thunder men's tennis team returned to Centre Court Athletic Club on Wednesday evening for a nonconference contest against Lake Forest College. Wheaton earned another narrow 4-3 win to collect its fourth-straight victory and maintain its perfect record against the Foresters, having won ten consecutive matches against tonight's opponent. The Thunder's season record now stands at 5-6 following their penultimate nonconference match of the year.

Lake Forest took the #3 doubles match to begin Wednesday's proceedings, but Wheaton secured the team point from doubles play thanks to wins in the first and second positions. Tim Steiner and Jacob Williams combined for a 6-3 result at #1 doubles, before Andrew Jang and Andrew Winters earned a 6-4 victory to give the home side the early advantage on the board.

This meant that the visitors needed to win four of the six singles fixtures to end their fruitless run against the Thunder, but despite their best efforts, Wheaton did just enough to maintain its winning run. Winters cruised to his second match win of the evening with a pair of 6-2 set wins at #6 singles to put his team up 2-0. But the Foresters rattled off straight-set victories in the following three matchups to set up a grandstand finish, and the Thunder needed to win at both #1 and #4 singles in order to claim the team result. Steiner notched an extended first-set win in his top singles match at 7-6 [7-4] before fighting off his Forester counterpart, 10-5, in their tiebreak game to level the two teams up at 3-3 on the scoreboard. Jang's #4 singles battle proved to be the decider in tonight's contest, and the sophomore matched his doubles partner Winters and Steiner on two victories for the night, bouncing back from a first-set loss to take the second frame at 6-4 to force a tiebreak. He then replicated Steiner's 10-5 scoreline in the extra frame to hand Wheaton a dramatic win.

After an 11-day layoff between its win over Carroll and tonight's fixture, Wheaton will not have to wait nearly as long for its next contest, as the team welcomes Millikin University and Illinois Wesleyan University for a pair of CCIW matches on campus this weekend. The Thunder are set to take on the Big Blue at 4:30 PM on Friday before facing the Titans at 10 AM the next morning.