The Lake Forest College men's tennis team dropped a 5-4 decision to the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire on Saturday at the Racquet Club of Lake Bluff.
Senior Oleksyi Vyshyvanyuk contributed to half of the Foresters' four points. After the Blugolds had finished off victories at the other two spots in the doubles lineup, Vyshyvanyuk and sophomore Daniel Tulchinskiy defeated Eau Claire's top tandem 8-3.
The match was tied after Lake Forest freshman Ian Villardi Venturini Barbosa completed a hard-fought 4-6, 6-3, 14-12 victory at #4 singles and again after Vyshyvanyuk's 6-4, 6-2 triumph at #1. The home team briefly took the lead when freshman George Ciuca won 7-6 (8-6), 6-2 at #3 but Eau Claire earned the points at the bottom two positions to secure the team victory.
The Foresters fell to 5-6 on the season while Eau Claire, ranked 13th in the Central Region, improved to 8-7.
Lake Forest will continue non-conference play against Case Western Reserve University at the Racquet Club of Lake Bluff next Friday at 5:00 p.m.