WEBSTER GROVES - Webster University men's tennis returned to action here Thursday after nearly 16 days off of action due to the weather by falling 9-0 to Illinois College in non-conference action at the Webster Groves Tennis Center.
With the setback, Webster falls to 3-3 on the season, while Illinois College improves to 4-4 on the year.
Thursday's match was the first match for the Gorloks since they collected a 6-3 win over Kaskaskia College in an exhibition match on March 20. Since that match, Webster had its next four matches postponed and rescheduled due to a rainy and cold conditions this spring in the St. Louis area.
The time off really showed in Thursday's match as the Gorloks failed to win a single point in a match for the time this season.
Illinois College opened Thursday's match by winning all three doubles matches, but two of three were competitive as Gorlok freshmen
Tom Shutzman (St. Louis, Mo./Parkway South) and
Austin Nation (Oklahoma City, Okla./Purcell) teamed together at the No. 2 spot to fall 8-6 to IC's Cameron Doerr and Rolando Salazar, while sophomore
Nicolas Andrade (Quito, Ecuador/Francis Howell) and freshman
Zach Bliss (Branson, Mo./Branson) fell 8-4 at the No. 3 spot to IC's Nazar Otunchiev and Jacob McQueen.
The No. 1 spot was not as competitive as IC's No. 1 tandem of Miguel Vaca and Michael Connolly defeated Webster's No. 1 tandem of sophomore
Riley Muren (O'Fallon, Mo./Illinois-Springfield) and junior
Charles McGhee (Waterloo, Ill./Waterloo), 8-1. It was the first time this season that Murren and McGhee played doubles together.
Meanwhile, in singles play, the Gorloks took one of the matches to a third set tiebreaker and another of its matches also featured a tiebreaker in the first set, while IC won the other four singles matches in straight sets.
At the No. 5 singles spot, Bliss took Salazar to a third set tiebreaker, before succumbing, 10-5, in the tiebreaker. Bliss opened the match by picking up a 6-4 win in the first set, before Salazar earned a 6-4 win in the second set.
Meanwhile, at the No. 6 singles spot, Andrade forced a tiebreaker in the opening set against McQueen as McQueen picked up a 7-6 (8-6) win, before picking up a 6-2 victory in the second set to seal the win.
In the other four singles matches, Webster won a total of 21 games, six of those wins coming at the No. 3 spot by Shutzman as he fell 6-2, 6-4 to Connolly, while McGhee won five games at the No. 4 spot over Doerr (6-1, 6-4). Muren and Nation lost their singles matches at No. 1 and No. 2 by the same scores as Muren fell to Vaca (6-0, 6-4) and Otunchiev defeated Nation (6-4, 6-0).
