WEBSTER GROVES - Webster University men's tennis opened the home portion of its 2019 spring schedule here Thursday evening by posting a hard-fought 5-4 victory over Illinois College at the Webster Groves Tennis Center.
With the victory, Webster improves to 7-2 on the season and extends its win streak to seven consecutive matches, which is the longest for the program since winning 13 straight matches during the 2013 season. Illinois College falls to 1-5 with the loss, its first to Webster since the 2017 season.
Last season, Webster lost 9-0 to the Blue Boys at home.
"What a nice win for our team tonight. We lost to them (Illinois College) 9-0 last season, so to be able to come back this year and pick up a win is impressive and shows the improvement we've made," Webster head men's tennis coach
Mike Siener said.
In Wednesday's game, IC jumped out to a 2-1 lead after winning two of the three doubles matches with Webster's lone doubles win coming at the No. 3 spot as junior
Nicolas Andrade (Quito, Ecuador/Francis Howell) and freshman
Tanner Haugen (Jefferson City, Mo./Jefferson City) rallied to win 8-6 over IC's duo of Jacob McQueen and Connor McAndrew. With the win, Andrade and Haugen improved their record to 2-1 on the season in doubles.
The Blue Boys won 8-4 and 8-5 respectively at No. 1 and No. 2 doubles.
Along with winning at No. 3 doubles, Andrade's win at No. 6 singles over IC's McAndrew sealed the match win for the Gorloks as WU and IC were tied at 4-4 after Michael Connolly earned his straight set win at No. 3 singles against senior
Charlie McGhee (Waterloo, Ill./Waterloo). Connolly won 6-4, 7-6 (7-4) to set up a winner take-all at No. 6 singles.
At the No. 6 singles spot, Andrade trailed 4-1 in the first set, before reeling off five straight games to win 6-4 and then picked up a 7-5 win in the second set to seal Webster's seventh straight match win and earn the first win over IC since picking up a 5-4 win in Jacksonville, Ill., on April 14, 2017.
With the victory, Andrade moved his record to 2-2 in singles on the season.
Along with Andrade's singles win, Webster also won three other singles matches as they won at No. 1, No. 2 and No. 5. IC would win at both No. 3 and No. 4 singles.
The Blue Boys opened singles by taking a 3-1 lead in the match as Cameron Doerr picked up a straight set win at No. 4 singles against sophomore
Tom Shutzman (St. Louis, Mo./Parkway South). Doerr won 6-0, 6-1.
Webster, though, would win three straight singles matches to take a 4-3 lead in the match.
The Gorloks began its run of singles wins with Haugen posting a 6-2, 6-3 win at No. 5 singles over Jacob McQueen and then sophomore
Austin Nation (Oklahoma City, Okla./Purcell) won his fifth consecutive singles match at the No. 2 spot as he defeated Jonah Wheeland, 6-2, 6-0.
Perhaps one of the most impressive singles wins came at the No. 1 spot as junior
Riley Muren (O'Fallon, Ill./Illinois-Springfield) earned a straight sets win over Miguel Vaca, 6-2, 6-4 to post his fifth straight victory and improve to 7-2 on the season in singles. It marked the first time in Vaca's four-year career that he lost in No. 1 singles to a Webster player as Vaca had won four consecutive matches at No. 1 singles against Webster's No. 1 player, before Muren's win on Thursday.
Connolly's win at No. 3 singles over McGhee forced a tie at 4 wins apiece to set up Andrade's match at No. 6 singles.
