Bloomington, Ill. -- After starting the weekend with a key victory at Millikin University that sealed its place in the upcoming conference tournament, the Wheaton men's tennis team hopped over to the CCIW's other central Illinois school on Saturday for its final match of the regular season. A few hours after the Thunder women's program lifted the CCIW Tournament trophy at the Evergreen Racquet Club, the men's squad ensured it was a perfect day of results for Wheaton at the complex with a hard-fought 4-3 win over Illinois Wesleyan University. The Orange and Blue now own an overall record of 7-9 and end the regular season conference slate above .500 at 4-3.

This evening's match was the Senior Night contest for Illinois Wesleyan, and the Titans' veterans began the program in strong fashion, capturing two of the three doubles fixtures to post the first point on the scoreboard. Corin Tang and Ryder Ward combined for a comfortable 6-2 win at #3 doubles, but IWU's victories in the top two matchups gave the home team an early boost.

That would not be enough to overcome Wheaton, however, as the visitors took four of today's six individual battles to earn the team win. The sophomore duo of Toby Schmidt and David Hill logged straightforward victories at #6 and #4 singles, winning 6-1, 6-1 and 6-3, 6-3, respectively. Illinois Wesleyan picked up a pair of straight-set wins on its side to move within one point of an overall victory. But the Thunder fought back from the brink courtesy of gutsy successes from Ward and Andrew Jang. The former turned around a first-frame defeat in dominant fashion, winning the next two sets of his #5 contest, 6-0, 6-1. The latter started his #2 singles duel with a 6-4 tilt and had to weather a 7-5 defeat in the following frame before emerging with a 6-3 victory in the resulting third set.

After a positive weekend of results in the region, Wheaton will return to Bloomington for the first round of the CCIW Men's Tennis Championship next week. This year's tournament is also being held at Evergreen and hosted by today's opponent. As the fourth-seeded team, the Thunder will compete in the first match of the postseason competition when they face the fifth-seeded Big Blue again in a 10 AM quarterfinal bout on Thursday.

Editor's Note: The box score of Saturday's match has not been produced yet but will be linked in this story and on the team's schedule page when possible.

Full results:

Doubles:

1. Turnbull, Ian/Vigneri, Ben (IWU) def. Jang, Andrew/Winters, Andrew (WC) 6-4

2. Dillow, Thad/Ehrlich, Will (IWU) def. Hill, David/Schmidt, Toby (WC) 6-3

3. Tang, Corin/Ward, Ryder (WC) def. Hammond, Griffin/Raher, Truman (IWU) 6-2

 

Singles:

1. Vigneri, Ben (IWU) def. Tang, Corin (WC) 6-4, 6-4

2. Jang, Andrew (WC) def. Turnbull, Ian (IWU) 6-4, 5-7, 6-3

3. Dillow, Thad (IWU) def. Winters, Andrew (WC) 6-2, 6-2

4. Hill, David (WC) def. Hammond, Griffin (IWU) 6-3, 6-3

5. Ward, Ryder (WC) def. Ehrlich, Will (IWU) 4-6, 6-0, 6-1

6. Schmidt, Toby (WC) def. Raher, Truman (IWU) 6-1, 6-1