ELSAH, Ill. - The Webster men's tennis team opened its 2021 season here Saturday by playing a pair of matches against both Principia College and Illinois Wesleyan University at the Hexburg Center on the Principia College campus.

Webster opened the day on Saturday by suffering a 9-0 match to Principia College and then concluded the day with an 8-1 setback to Illinois Wesleyan.

Saturday's matches were the first for the Gorloks since concluding its spring break trip to Hilton Head, S.C., on March 12, 2020, with a 5-4 win against Penn State-Behrend. Less than a week after that match, the remainder of Webster's spring sports seasons were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

With the two setbacks, Webster falls to 0-2 on the season, while Principia moves to 1-0 and Illinois Wesleyan improves to 4-0.

PRINCIPIA 9, WEBSTER 0 - Principia continued its strong play against Webster in Saturday's season opener as the Panthers collected a 9-0 shutout victory and extend its win streak over the Gorloks to nine consecutive victories. Webster's last win over Principia came on Apr. 11, 2013 as the Gorloks earned a 7-2 win in Elsah. 

The Panthers, who have won six consecutive St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament titles, opened the match by sweeping all three doubles matches as the Gorloks were only able to win two games in the three doubles matches. 

Meanwhile, in singles action, the Panthers won all six matches, but three of the matches - No. 1, No. 3 and No. 6 were very competitive. 

At No. 1 singles, graduate student Riley Muren (O'Fallon, Ill./Ill.-Springfield) played a hard-fought match at No. 1 singles against Daniel Gomez as Gomez won 6-3, 6-2. The loss snapped Muren's 12 game win streak in dual singles that had dated to the 2019 season. Prior to the shutdown of the 2020 season, Muren went 9-0 in No. 1 singles play. 

The other two competitive matches came at No. 3 singles as freshman Cody Neal (Fenton, Mo./Rockwood Summit) fell by identical 6-2, 6-2 scores in his collegiate debut to Principia's Juan Segovia and at No. 6 singles as freshman Noah Thomas (Wentzville, Mo./Holt) played strong in his collegiate debut against Elliott Matthiesen as Matthiesen won 7-5, 6-1. 

In the other four singles matches, Webster won a total of 11 games against the Panthers. 

ILLINOIS WESLEYAN 8, WEBSTER 1 - After opening Saturday's action with a shutout loss to Principia, Webster would waste little time as they immediately returned to court and faced off against Illinois Wesleyan. IWU, who entered the match with a 3-0 record on the season, would win their fourth match of the year after an 8-1 win over the Gorloks. 

In doubles, Illinois Wesleyan swept all three matches, but the Gorloks made the Titans work for two of their wins.

At No. 1 doubles, Muren and his partner, freshman Matthew Birchmeier (Swartz Creek, Mich./Flushing) battled neck-and-neck throughout their match before falling 8-6 to IWU's tandem of Demetrios Triantafel and Carter Burk, while the Gorloks' No. 3 doubles team of Thomas and Neal fell 8-3 to IWU's team of Tim Hughes and Dylan Mikaili. 

Meanwhile, in singles, the Titans won five of the six singles matches to collect the match win, but Muren prevented a clean sweep by Illinois Wesleyan.

At No. 1 singles, Muren faced off with Triantafel and those play played perhaps the match of the day as Muren opened by earning a 6-3 win in the first set, before Triantafel rebounded to earn a 7-6 (7-4) win in the second set and force a third set tiebreaker. In the third set tiebreaker, Muren dominated as he would win the set, 10-0 to give the Gorloks its lone win of the day. 

With his victory, Muren moved into a tie with Josh Sellmeyer for fifth place on Webster's career singles wins chart with 30 career singles victories. Muren is now 30-15 all-time in singles play in his Webster career.

Two other singles matches against the Titans were lost by identical 6-3, 6-3 scores as Birchmeier fell at No. 2 singles to Burk (6-3, 6-3) and Neal lost at No. 3 singles to Ryan McCoy (6-3, 6-3).

Webster is scheduled to return to action on Thursday, March 4 as they host Maryville University in a 6 p.m. at the Webster Groves Tennis Center.