The Eastern women’s tennis team set its sights quite high last Friday as the Panthers were attempting to defeat Murray State, who had yet to lose at home in five previous matches.

The Panthers played the opening set of the No. 1 singles match like a team ready to hand Murray State their first team-loss, not only at home and but also in the Ohio Valley Conference. Senior Becky Brunner started the afternoon with a nip-and-tuck affair against the Racers top female player Melissa Spencer. Brunner’s quest for an opening upset ended when she dropped the first set 7-6. After a tight first set, Spencer took the second set and the match in relative ease with a 6-2 winner.

In the next two singles matches, Eastern managed to win just four games during the four sets. Junior Sarah Freeman fell to the Racers Jaclyn Leeper 6-1, 6-0 and the Panthers young sensation Madina Mambetova was easily defeated by junior Jennifer Ward 6-1, 6-2, allowing Murray State to go up by three in singles action.

Senior Amber Lenfert opened the fourth singles match with a first set victory for the Panthers. Lenfert bested Rachael Lask 6-4, in the opening set, before Lask came back with wins in the next two sets to take the match. Eastern remained winless in singles competition with losses from Constanza Camacho (7-5, 6-3 to Casady Pruitt) and Jill Wirtz, who fell in her match 6-1, 6-2, to Christina Hall.

Eastern also lost in its quest to obtain the doubles point as the teams of Brunner and Freeman, Mambetova and Camacho and Lenfert and Wirtz all were soundly defeated by Murray State’s duos.

With the loss Eastern is now 6-7 overall and 3-3 in OVC play. The Panthers sit in sixth-place in the conference and are three games behind Murray State for the top spot.

While the women struggled, the men had little trouble against the Racers and won their match 5-2 to improve their record to 9-7 overall and 4-1 in the OVC.

Senior C.J. Weber sent the Panthers off and running with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Zaharia Bahri in the number one singles match and Eastern would never look back. The blue and white won its next four singles matches as Brandon Blankenbaker, Chuck LeVaque, Ryan Blankenbaker and Brandon Lenfert all were victorious in straight sets.

The only setback in singles action occurred in the number six match as Colin Priestner lost 6-2, 6-2, against Chris Morgan as the Racers salvaged one of the six points.

With the outcome of Friday’s showdown already decided, Eastern lost all three doubles matches allowing Murray State to pick up their second point of the afternoon. All three were close matches with the top team of Weber and Brandon Blankenbaker playing the tightest match before losing 9-7 to Bahri and Masimba Muskwe.

Despite losing the doubles point Eastern still won the overall series 5-2 and improved to 4-1 in the OVC and now are tied for second with Jacksonville State behind undefeated Tennessee Tech.