The men’s tennis team lost to non-conference opponent Marquette this weekend 6-1. The Panthers (2-7) have lost their fourth straight match. Marquette (6-5) remains unbeaten at home with five wins.

Those wins came against Indiana-Purdue University Indianapolis, South Dakota State, Northern Illinois, and University of Illinois-Chicago.

The only Panther to get the win and the point was senior Ryan Henderson. At the No.2 spot, Henderson defeated Alvaro Verdu 6-3, 7-6 (7). Henderson’s record now sits at 6-3 on the year. Henderson said that the most important part of his match was to return his opponents “big” serves well enough to get himself the points.

“We have been working a lot on returning (in practice), it helped during my match,” Henderson said. “I changed up my return position during the match as well.”

Despite only one victory, there were three close matches that were taken to three sets. Had the Panthers won in the third set, the Panthers would of come away with a 4-3 victory over the Golden Eagles.

At the No.1 spot, senior Robert Skolik was defeated by Daniel Fernandez 7-6 (9), 2-6, 1-0 (6). Sophomore Grant Reiman was beat by Mackenzie Stearns 5-7, 6-1, 6-4. Freshman Ognjen Jevtic lost to Andre Romanello 3-6, 6-2, 6-1.

Senior Rui Silva lost 6-4, 6-1 to Nick Dykema. Sophomore Trent Reiman lost to Greg Anderson 6-3, 6-2.

In doubles, the Panthers came away with a victory but could not stop the Golden Eagles from gaining the doubles point.

The duo of Henderson and Jevtic at the No. 3 spot, came away with the win against Scott Christian and Gleb Sklyr beating them 6-1. The Reiman brothers were close, losing 6-3 against Anderson and Dykema. Skolik and Silva were defeated 6-2 by Verdu and Fernandez who clinched the point for the Golden Eagles.

The Panthers will have one more away match this Saturday March 12^th facing DePaul (3-11) in Chicago at 2:15 p.m. DePaul comes off of a three loss HEB Invitational in Corpus Christi, Texas.

The losses were close, the Blue Demons only lost by one in each match, 4-3, losing to Southern Mississippi, Southern Alabama, and University of Texas-San Antonio.

Then after that, it will be the home opener at the Darling Courts to open up Ohio Valley Conference play on the 20^th against Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville (5-7). SIUE have lost two of the last three matches, losing 5-2 to Navy, and 4-1 to Dayton. They swept Coppin State 7-0.

The Panthers only have five home matches this season. They will be facing SIUE, Belmont, Tennessee State, Jacksonville State, and Tennessee Tech.

Tyler McCluskey can be reached at 581-2812 or trmccluskey@eiu.edu