SEWARD, Neb. – A run of three straight home matches within conference play continued on Tuesday evening (April 2) as the Concordia University men’s tennis team entertained rival Doane. The Bulldogs notched a victory in doubles play, but failed to gain traction in singles and suffered an 8-1 defeat. It came on the heels of an 8-1 win over Morningside on Sunday.
Coached by David DeSimone and Nikita Kostikov, Concordia slipped to 7-6 overall and to 2-2 inside the conference.
The positive result from a Bulldog perspective came at No. 2 doubles where the combination of junior Luke Zoller and freshman Jack Kitson found a way to pull out the win, 9-8 (3), in a tight battle. The Tigers (8-3, 1-0 GPAC) took the Nos. 1 and 3 doubles matches both by scores of 8-4, giving the visitors the upper hand heading into singles.
In singles, No. 1 Thomas Greeff and No. 4 Isaac Howes fell in third-set tiebreakers. The team scoring would have looked much closer had those matches gone the other way. The rest of the Concordia lineup included Zoller at No. 2, sophomore Jeremy Berryman at No. 3, senior Conner Works at No. 5 and Kitson at No. 6. Works entered the day with a team high of eight singles wins this season.
Another stiff challenge awaits on Saturday when the Bulldogs will be on the road to take on NCAA Division II Augustana University in Sioux Falls, S.D. First serve is set for 2 p.m. CT.