The Eastern men’s tennis team dropped its third straight match on Saturday, 7-0, to Nebraska at Drake’s Knapp Tennis Center in Des Moines, Iowa.

Eastern went 0-3 in doubles matches and 0-6 in singles matches.

“Nebraska is a very strong team,” Eastern men’s tennis coach Eric Stark said. “I would be surprised if they weren’t in the top half of the Big Ten this year.”

The last time Eastern was shutout was against Michigan State a year ago when they lost 7-0 to the Spartans in East Lansing.

Despite losing every match, the Panthers were tough in every doubles match losing 7-5, 6-4, 6-3 in their three doubles matches.

Huskers juniors Dusty Boyer and Bradford Zitsch defeated junior Robert Skolik and freshman Preston Touliatos 7-5. Junior Scott Elsass and freshman Linus Erhart defeated juniors Ryan Henderson and Rui Silva 6-4. Junior Marc Herrmann and freshman Chris Hobgarski defeated sophomore Grant Thompson and senior David Constantinescu 6-3.

“We had some great individual efforts today, but you can’t beat a really good Nebraska team without a combined team effort,” Stark said. “I really liked the way we played doubles today. Rob and Preston battled back from a break down and Ryan and Rui moved well and returned well. I thought this was their best doubles match of the young season.”

This was the first match where Stark didn’t use the team of freshman twins Grant and Trent Reiman. He said there was no reason why he didn’t use them except for new combinations.

“In the early season, we are going to try a bunch of different combinations in the line-up to see what will work and to get everyone some experience,” Stark said.

In the No. 1 match Boyer defeated Thompson 6-4, 7-5. In the No. 2 match Herrmann defeated Touliatos 6-2, 6-2. In the No. 3 match, junior Andrew Dzulynsky defeated Skolik 6-3, 6-4.

In the No. 4, No. 5 and No. 6 matches, Erhart defeated Henderson 6-1, 6-1; Hobgarski defeated Silva 6-2, 6-2, and Sophomore Vasileios Stavropoulos defeated freshman Grant Reiman 6-4, 6-1.

The second year head coach said he is not worried going forward in terms of wins or losses.

“We are not evaluating our non-conference on wins and losses but on development,” he said. “We didn’t have our best team match, but we had some great efforts out there.”

Eastern’s non-conference schedule has still just begun as they still have eight matches before they dive into Ohio Valley Conference matchups in mid-March.

The Panthers have their first short week of the season with their next matchup against Indianapolis on Tuesday.

“We will get right back to work on a short week,” Stark said. “We play three very tough teams this week and I’m excited to see how we handle it.”

The Panthers will travel to Indianapolis for their fourth match of the year at 12 p.m. at the UIndy Tennis Center.

Cody Delmendo can be reached at 581-2812 or cddelmendo@eiu.edu.