The Lakeland men’s tennis team started their last non-conference match of the season with three doubles wins and never looked back, defeating Beloit College 6-3 on Saturday, March 27 at the Kohler Sports Core.

The Muskies, who picked up wins in 3 out of 6 singles matches to close out Ripon, finished non-conference play 3-6 after failing to win a non-conference match a season ago.

The freshman doubles team of Andy McGlashen and Jake Halverson, playing in the No. 1 slot for the first time this season, scored a narrow 8-6 victory. The remaining doubles teams were made up of first-time partners with senior Andre Glass and junior David May combining for an 8-3 victory at No. 2 and juniors Tom Kuehl and Yuki Shiono joining for another 8-3 Lakeland victory.

“It was the first time Yuki and Tom played together in their three years on the team and they played well,” men’s tennis coach Doron Green said. “Dave May played well in doubles, too. He was aggressive to the net, consistent on his serve—I really liked the way he played.”

“Since spring break, we’ve been pretty lethargic as a team and it carried over to this match as we got behind in two-thirds of the doubles matches before we settled down and won all three.”

Andre Glass recorded the most convincing victory of the day, blanking the Buccaneer No. 1 singles player 6-0. The win was Glass’ fifth this year from the No. 1 and No. 2 singles positions.

McGlashen scored a comfortable 6-2, 6-1 win at No. 2 singles and Shiono defeated Beloit’s No. 4 player 6-3, 6-0 to round out Lakeland’s singles victories.

“We had nine matches versus six last season, and I hoped we’d have an opportunity to win some matches and also play very difficult teams. I think it’s important that we have very difficult non-conference matches to prepare for conference and that we have successes, as well,” Green said. “My one concern has been that the guys seem tired since spring break, and I hope we haven’t overdone the non-conference schedule.”

“The Northern Athletics Conference’s coaches’ projected us to finish third this season and I believe that’s where we’ll finish,” Green said. “We have a stronger team than in the past, but it depends on what happened around the conference. If MSOE and Concordia Wisconsin dropped off in terms of their talent, we’ll have a good chance to finish higher than third.”

Lakeland hosts Concordia Chicago at 10 a.m. and Dominican at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 10 at the Kohler Sports Core.