The Hillsdale College men's tennis team had some success against one of the top teams in the Midwest on Friday, but ultimately the eighth-ranked team in the nation proved to be too much in a 6-1 road defeat at Wayne State.
Hillsdale made it a battle against the Warriors, taking the No. 2 doubles match behind strong play from senior Tyler Conrad and freshman Ellis Klanduch in a 6-3 victory over the nationally and regionally ranked doubles pairing of Wayne State's Luke Laws and Dom Spicer.
Despite that victory, the Warriors captured the doubles point and five of the six singles matches to pull away. Senior Sean Barstow pulled out an impressive victory at No. 4 singles to capture Hillsdale's lone point, winning the first set 6-1 and taking a 7-5 tiebreak in set two to complete a straight set sweep of Wayne State's Denali Kitayama. At No. 6 singles, Daniel Gilbert also played a solid match for the Chargers, pushing Wayne State's Emil Mikkelsen to a third set before falling by a razor-thin margin in an extended, 12-10 super-tiebreak.
Hillsdale drops to 3-5 with the loss, and will now take 10 days off before heading to Hilton Head Island for their spring break trip, and three matches in three days beginning with a battle with West Virginia State on March 11. The Chargers also will play Quincy on March 12, before finishing the trip with a battle against Division I University of St. Louis.
Photo by Hope Canlas