Facing tough non-Division III competition on Friday afternoon at the Mayfield Village Racquet Club in Mayfield, Ohio, the fourth-ranked Case Western Reserve University men's tennis team suffered a pair of losses, dropping a 6-1 loss to Wayne State University, the 17th-ranked team in Division II, and a 4-3 loss to the University of Northwestern Ohio.

CWRU fell to 4-2 on the season with the two losses.

The Spartans dropped the doubles point against Wayne State, as first-years Leon Chen and Jon Totorica suffered a 6-1 setback to Sam Knowles and Tom Wasner in the second doubles matches and senior Casey Hishinuma and junior Anmay Devaraj dropped a 6-3 decision to Cedric Drenth and George Day in the first doubles match. With the doubles point already allotted, sophomores George Kosseifi and Trey Lambright defeated Maxence Faniel and Benjamin Hill 6-4 in the third doubles contest to avoid the sweep.

First-year Rowan Matorin evened the score for the Spartans with a 6-3, 6-0 win over Faniel in the sixth match to start singles play. Wayne State regained the lead with Drenth's 6-2, 6-3 victory over senior Ajay Mahenthiran at no. 1 singles and Knowles added to the Warriors' lead with a 7-5, 6-1 win against first-year Konrad Kwiatkowski in the fifth singles match.

Trailing 3-1, CWRU needed to claim wins on each of the remaining three singles courts in order to pull out the win. However, the Spartans' hopes for a comeback were dashed when Kosseifi dropped a 7-5, 6-2 match at second singles to Day.

The Spartans went three sets in each of the other two matches, but ultimately fell short, as sophomore Santiago Salazar Garza fell to Wasner 5-7, 6-4, 10-2 at fourth singles, and junior Matthew Plunkett dropped a 6-3, 7-6 (5), 10-8 decision to Luis Klaus at third singles.

Wayne State improved to 2-0 following the win.

CWRU bounced back to take the doubles point in its second match of the day against Northwestern Ohio. After juniors Rohan Bhat and Justin Prochnow suffered a 6-1 defeat to Nils Messin and Lucas Perez at no. 1 doubles, the Spartans picked up a 6-3 win from Lambright and sophomore Derek Shiffer over Carlos Hernandez and Mete Koseoglu at third doubles and a 6-4 triumph from Devaraj and Hishinuma over Francisco Perez and Lucas Grana at second doubles to take a 1-0 lead into singles play.

In singles play, Mahenthiran added to the Spartans' lead with a 6-3, 6-3 win over Koseoglu at first singles, but the Racers picked up a pair of singles wins in quick succession to tie the team score with Grana beating Bhat 6-2, 6-2 at fourth singles and Devaraj suffering a 6-2, 6-3 loss to Francisco Perez at second singles. Northwestern Ohio added a three-set win at third singles, as Lucas Perez bested Hishinuma 4-6, 7-6 (3), 10-3, putting the Racers a point away from clinching the win.

CWRU tied the score at 3-3 with a win at fifth singles from Totorica, who pulled out a three-set victory over Florian Smalto, 6-3, 4-6, 10-4, putting all of the attention on a decisive sixth-singles match between senior Ben Martin and Messin. Martin won the first set 6-2 but fell in a tiebreaker in the second set, 7-6 (2). The tiebreaker set between the two was tied at 3-3 before Messin rallied off back-to-back points to take a 5-3 lead. Messin held an advantage the rest of the way en route to winning the tiebreaker set 10-6 and clinching the match victory for the Racers.

Northwestern Ohio improved to 4-1 with the win.

The Spartans will be back in action tomorrow, hosting Hope College at 11:30 a.m. and 20th-ranked Carnegie Mellon University at 5:00 p.m. at the Mayfield Village Racquet Club.

Spartan Notes

• With his singles win against Wayne State, Matorin improved to 4-0 in singles play in the spring and to 11-3 overall. His 11 singles wins are tied with Kosseifi for the team lead.

• Following Friday's match, the Spartans stand at 51-30 in doubles play and 125-56 in singles matches, including a 15-3 doubles record and a 27-9 singles record in dual matches.