The Lake Forest College men's tennis team blanked Cornell College 5-0 in the semifinals of the Midwest Conference Team Tournament Friday morning. The Foresters were then defeated by Grinnell College by the same score in the tourney final in the afternoon.
The runner-up finish was the team's seventh in the last eight MWC Tournaments.
Lake Forest began the day by sweeping Cornell in doubles. Freshman George Ciuca and junior Eduardo Manuitt rolled 8-1 at #2 while freshman Ian Villardi Venturini Barbosa and sophomore Kyle Lassen prevailed 8-2 at #3. The match's closest score was at #1, where Forester senior Oleksyi Vyshyvanyuk and sophomore Daniel Tulchinskiy edged out the Rams' top pairing 8-6.
Ciuca took both sets 6-3 at #3 singles and the match ended when Villardi Venturini Barbosa finished off his #4 singles counterpart 6-1, 6-1. Each of Lake Forest's other four players had already won the first set and were playing in the second when the clinching point was recorded.
Vyshyvanyuk and Tulchinskiy came out on the other side of an 8-6 decision against Grinnell's #1 doubles team. The Pioneers also won at #2 and #3 doubles and then clinched the title with victories at #4 and #5 singles.
In the four unfinished matches, Vyshyvanyuk had taken the first set 6-4 but trailed 5-4 in the second. After dropping the first set 6-1, fellow senior and #6 singles player Jacob TIlton won the second 6-2 . Their teammates were down a set in each of the other two contests.
The Foresters' final dual meet record this season is 11-9 while Grinnell, listed 10th in the Central Region in today's Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings, heads to the NCAA Tournament at 17-7.
Both teams will remain in Peoria, Illinois, for the MWC Individual Tournaments on Saturday and Sunday.