Following a disappointing loss to San Diego Christian College on March 18, Biola’s men’s tennis team bounced back in a big way. They faced the University of the Southwest Mustangs on March 23, winning 9-0, then followed it up with a 8-1 win over the Saint Lawrence University Saints on March 24.

Although neither game improves Biola’s 2-4 Golden State Athletic Conference record, it does move their overall record to 7-8 and gives them confidence going into the remainder of the season.

The match against the University of the Southwest started out on a very positive note for the Eagles, as they won all three doubles matches with 8-3 as the closest score. Senior Luke Mountain and junior Philip Westwood did the best, earning the 8-0 sweep over their opponents on the No. 2 court.

In singles play, the story was much the same, with six total shutout sets resulting in two match sweeps, for Westwood on the No. 2 court and junior Milos Zoric on the No. 5 court. Junior Joe Turnquist won his first set 7-5 before earning a 6-0 shutout in the second set. Junior Michael Vartuli secured the 9-0 win with his 6-2, 6-4 victory on the No. 6 court.

Saint Lawrence gave Biola slightly more competition, but still ended up taking the loss. The Eagles again swept in doubles, with the freshman pair of Noah Archer and Jacob Vanderbeek, combining for the first time to get the 8-4 win. It also earned Archer his first career win in his first career match for Biola.

In singles play, the first five matches all ended in wins for the Eagles, but unfortunately Archer could not hold on to the singles match, losing the first set 6-3, taking the second 6-0, then dropping the tiebreaker 10-5.

Biola has two more back-to-back non-conference home matches before resuming GSAC play. The first match is against Pacific Lutheran University on March 28 at 2 p.m. followed by a match against the University of Hawaii at Hilo on March 29 at 1:30 p.m.