The Eastern men’s tennis team has battled through the spring season, starting slow and facing many challenges along the way.

Now, riding a three-game losing streak, the team travels to Dayton, Ohio to end their non-conference play before the start of the conference schedule.

Eastern will play an Dayton University (8-7) Friday beginning at 5 p.m.

The Flyers (8-7) are riding a three-game winning streak while the Panthers come in with a three-game losing streak.

Dayton has defeated both Saint Louis University (7-0), and Illinois State University (4-0) this season, both SLU (6-1) and ISU (5-2) beat Eastern this season.

Dayton also defeated IUPUI 4-2 who beat Eastern 6-1.

Eastern holds a 3-2 series advantage over Dayton.

Eastern will also face the Wright State Raiders, beginning at 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

Wright State (2-10) is having a similar season to Eastern (2-11). The Raiders are coming off a 6-1 loss to Ball State who swept Eastern 7-0 earlier this season.

Eastern owns the series over Wright State at 3-0.

Despite Easterns three-game losing streak, the team hopes to carry over a few positives from last weekend’s sets.

In its last match of the weekend Eastern lost by one point (4-3) to Chicago State.  Junior Jared Woodson, freshmen Marko Stefan Janjusic and Ferdinand Ammer all won mathces.  Woodson picked up his third win of the season and Ammer picked up his second.

Janjusic (6-7) currently has the best singles record on Eastern’s roster.  After his win last week, he said it felt great to get the win, but winning as a team feels much better and that is what the team is striving for.

He also said the team needs to continue working on what is has been all semester.

Head coach Samuel Kercheval echoed Janjusic and added the team is talking about staying positive and continuing on the path they are on.

Dillian Schorfheide can be reached at 581-2812 or dtschorfeide@eiu.edu