BELLEVILLE, Ill. - Webster University concluded its 2021 men's tennis season here Saturday afternoon by posting a 7-2 win over Westminster (Mo.) College in the third place match of the 2021 St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tournament held at the Kings Point Tennis Center.

With the win, Webster closes the season with a 5-11-1 record, while Westminster closes the year with a 1-7-1 record. 

The Gorloks fell into the third place match after suffering a 5-1 loss in Saturday's semifinal match against No. 2 seeded Greenville University. Westminster earned its spot in the third place match after its 5-0 semifinal loss to top-seeded Principia College.

In the third place match against Westminster, who the Gorloks defeated three times during the 2021 spring campaign, Webster would win two of the three doubles matches, including winning at No. 3 doubles by default as the Blue Jays only have four active players on Saturday. 

Fifth-year senior Riley Muren (O'Fallon, Ill./Illinois-Springfield) and freshman Matthew Birchmeier (Swartz Creek, Mich./Flushing) would win 8-1 at No. 1 doubles to finish the season with a 9-8 record. The duo won its final two matches of the season and went 2-0 in the SLIAC Tournament. 

Westminster prevented a sweep in doubles by the Gorloks as they picked up an 8-0 win over sophomore Parker Schaefer (Barnhart, Mo./Windsor) and senior Courtland Butler (St. Louis, Mo./McKinley) at the No. 2 doubles spot.

Freshmen Cody Neal (Fenton, Mo./Rockwood Summit) and Noah Thomas (Wentzville, Mo./Holt) won by default. 

Meanwhile in singles, the Gorloks only had to play four matches as they earned wins at No. 5 and No. 6 by default. 

In singles action, the Gorloks dropped a total of  29 games over the four matches, with 18 of those coming at No. 3 singles by Birchmeier.

Muren would conclude his season with a 6-3, 6-1 win at No. 1 spot over Pennington and with his win, Muren improved his record to 9-7 overall and he won his 39th career singles match, which is now just four shy of Ricky Eaves' school record of 43 career singles wins. 

Neal would pick up a double bagel (6-0, 6-0) win at No. 2 singles over Giovanni Strickland to improve his season record to 4-10 in singles, including a 4-8 mark at the No. 2 spot. 

Birchmeier concluded his first collegiate season with a 2-6, 6-3, 10-4 loss No. 3 spot to Aiden Petterson. 

Webster's sixth and final point in singles came from Thomas as he defeated Rettke in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4 to improve his record to 5-8 on the season and seal Webster's third place finish.

Meanwhile, in the semifinal match with Greenville, the No. 2 seeded Panthers would win two of the doubles matches and seal its 5-1 victory after earning wins in singles at No. 3, No. 5 and No. 6. 

Against Greenville (10-6), the Panthers, who improved to 10-4 with the win, won 8-3 and 8-0 at No. 2 and No. 3 doubles respectively, but Muren and Birchmeier prevented a sweep by the Panthers as they earned a hard-fought 8-6 win at the No. 1 spot of Greenville's duo of Austin Burkhart and Mathew Rodriguez. 

In singles play, the Gorloks were only able to win a total of eight games as Greenville won three of the singles match to earn the win and also was leading in the other three matches when they sealed the 5-1 victory.

Birchmeier fell 6-0, 6-3 at No. 3 singles to Luke Motsinger, while Butler suffered a 6-0, 6-1 loss at No. 5 singles to Zach Merrill and Matt Lehr posted back-to-back 6-0 wins over Schaefer at No. 6 singles.

Muren lost 6-0 in the first set to Burkhart and was trailing 1-0 in the second set, while Neal was down 3-1 in the opening set at No. 2 singles and Thomas trailed Rodriguez, 2-1 in the first set at No. 4 singles.