WEBSTER GROVES - The Webster University men's tennis team (0-4) returned to the action for the first time in 11 days here Saturday afternoon as the Gorloks fell 6-3 to Evangel University at the Webster Groves Tennis Center.

In Saturday's match, which was the second consecutive at home for the Gorloks, Webster was very competitive as they won a total of 47 games in singles and forced two of their singles matches to a third set.  

The two teams opened the match by playing doubles on Saturday. The Crusaders took an early 2-1 lead in the match after winning two of the three doubles matches. 

Webster's lone win in doubles came at the No. 1 spot in the line-up as graduate student Riley Muren (O'Fallon, Ill./Illinois-Springfield) teamed with freshman Matthew Birchmeier (Swartz Creek, Mich./Flushing) to post an 8-6 win over Evangel's No. 1 team of Daryl Wong and James McIlwraith. The win for Muren and Birchmeier was their first of the season in doubles. 

Evangel (3-4) won at No. 2 doubles, 8-3, but were forced into a tiebreaker at the No. 3 spot as junior Justin Kohler (Waterloo, Ill./Waterloo) and senior Courtland Butler (St. Louis, Mo./McKinley) battled point-for-point with Evangel's No. 3 team of Jon Deroo and Devin Stone. The Crusaders tandem would eventualy win the match, 8-7 (8-6). 

Meanwhile, in singles, Evangel earned the win after winning at No. 2, No. 3, No. 4 and No. 6 singles. 

Webster's singles wins were earned by Muren at the No. 1 spot and freshman Noah Thomas (Wentzville, Mo./Holt) at the No. 5 spot. 

At the No. 1 spot, Muren improved to 2-2 on the season as he battled Wong through three hard-fought sets. Muren opened the match by posting a 7-6 (7-4) win in the first set, while Wong would post a 7-6 (10-8) win at the second set to force a third and final set. In the third set, Muren would prevail 6-2 over Wong. The singles win was the 31st of Muren's career, which is fifth on the school's all-time chart. 

Thomas, who collected his first career singles win on Saturday, posted a straight set victory over Jordan Letterman at the No. 5 singles spot. Thomas won 6-1, 6-2.

Another strong singles match came at the No. 2 spot in the line-up as freshman Cody Neal (Fenton, Mo./Rockwood Summit) forced a third set with James McIlwraith. In the set, Neal opened with a 6-1 win, before falling 6-1 and then suffering an 6-0 loss in the third set. 

The Gorloks will look to rebound on Sunday, March 14 as they host Hastings College in a 4:30 p.m. match indoors at the Sunset Tennis Center.