HILTON HEAD, S.C. - Webster University men's tennis concluded play here Wednesday morning in the Spring Tennis Fest by dropping a hard-fought 6-3 decision to Illinois Wesleyan at Carolina Place

With the setback, Webster falls to 3-2 on the season and concludes play in the Spring Tennis Fest with a 3-1 record, while Illinois Wesleyan improves to 2-5 overall.

The Gorloks opened Wednesday's match by dropping two of the three doubles matches as Webster's only win came at the No. 3 spot as freshman Zach Bliss (Branson, Mo./Branson) and sophomore Nicolas Andrade (Quito, Ecuador/Francis Howell) posted a hard-fought 8-4 win over IWU's No. 3 team of Jimmy Kase and Yash Thacker. 

In fact, all three doubles matches were intense and hard-fought as IWU won at No. 1 doubles, 8-7 and at No. 2 doubles, 8-6.

Meanwhile in singles play, the Gorloks picked up wins at the No. 5 and No. 6 spots in its line-up.

At the No. 5 spot, Bliss defeated Kase in a third-set tiebreaker after they traded sets with Kase winning the first set, 6-0 and Bliss posting a 6-2 win in the second set. The tiebreaker belonged to Bliss as he earned a 10-2 win. The victory by Bliss was his fourth consecutive in singles play as he went 4-0 in singles during the Spring Tennis Fest.

Meanwhile, Andrade earned his second straight win at the No. 6 singles spot as posted a straight sets win over Thacker, 6-1, 6-3.

Much like doubles, the singles matches were highly competitive and could've either teams way, IWU would pull out wins at Nos. 1-4 singles to take the match.

At the No. 1 spot, sophomore Riley Muren (O'Fallon, Mo./O'Fallon Township) suffered his first singles loss of the season as this week's St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference's Men's Tennis Player of the Week fell in straight sets (6-2, 6-3) to IWU's Kurt Meyer.

Freshman Austin Nation (Oklahoma City, Okla./Purcell) lost at the No. 2 spot to Justin Piotrowski (6-3, 6-2), while freshman Tom Shutzman (St. Louis, Mo./Parkway South) fell 6-2, 7-5 to Tim Hughes at No. 3 and junior Charles McGhee (Waterloo, Ill./Waterloo) fell 6-4, 6-2 to Ryan Yoo at the No. 4 spot.

Webster will now return home to St. Louis and will next hit the courts for a match at home on Tuesday, March 20 against Kaskaskia College. The Kaskaskia match will be held at the Webster Groves Tennis Center and will begin at 6 p.m.