Milwaukee, Wis. - After having their original conference opening home match against Lakeland on Saturday rescheduled to April 10th, the Illinois Tech men's tennis team had to wait until Sunday's visit to MSOE to start their conference season. With the teams splitting the singles matches, it was the Raiders winning two of the three doubles matches that gave MSOE the deciding point in their 4-3 match victory over the Scarlet Hawks. The Hawks open Northern Athletic Collegiate Conference (NACC) play 0-1, and fell to 4-8 overall. The Raiders start conference play 1-0 and improved to 5-4 overall.

Despite the tough loss, the Hawks took away a positive in the play of Eduardo Lopez. Lopez won his fourth consecutive singles match on the week when he won his number five singles match. Lopez won all of his singles matches during the team's spring break trip at Hilton Head Island, S.C. earlier last week.

Doubles Play - MSOE 2 - Illinois Tech 1 (MSOE earns the lone doubles point to take a 1-0 match lead)

• The teams split the first two doubles matches, with the Raiders number one doubles pairing of Andres Saavedra and Joe Chong outlasting the Scarlet Hawks' Avneet Singh and Alexander Feher 7-6 with a 7-3 final point tie-breaker. The Scarlet Hawks countered, with the number two doubles team of Pedro Caroa-Accino Roca and Hozumi Tada winning their match against Miguel Lopez and Clark Rue 7-6, also with a 7-3 final point tie-breaker. That left the number three doubles match to decide the lone doubles point, and MSOE's Carlos Patino and Carlos Lopez defeated Illinois Tech's Eduardo Lopez and Pol Dueso Guell 6-4 for the 1-0 match lead.

Singles Play - MSOE 3 - Illinois Tech 3 (MSOE earns the three singles points needed for the 4-3 match victory)

• For the Scarlet Hawks, dropping the number one and number two singles matches ultimately turned out to be the difference in the match. In close battles, MSOE's Saavedra defeated Roca in the number one singles match, 6-4, 7-5, while the Raiders' Patino outlasted Feher in a three-set battle, 6-7 (3-7), 6-2, 6-4 in the number two singles match. The Scarlet Hawks would win the number three, four and five singles matches to send the match down to the wire. Dueso Guell defeated Rue 6-3, 6-4 in the number three singles match; Tada won a three-set number four singles match against Miguel Lopez 7-6 (7-5), 2-6, 6-4; and Eduardo Lopez defeated MSOE's Pedro Mendes 6-3, 6-1 in the number five singles match. The sixth singles match gave the Raiders the third singles point they needed to claim the match victory, as MSOE's Augusto Eiji Yamazak defeated Illinois Tech's Tejas Sheth 6-2, 6-1. 

Up Next
The Scarlet Hawks resume conference play this Saturday, March 29th, when the Marian Sabres come to the XS Tennis Center at 4:30pm in another NACC matchup.