Box Score BEAUMONT, Texas – With a team as young as the Lamar University men's tennis team is this season, and with such a tough non-conference schedule in front of them, growing pains are to be expected. LU head coach Scott Shankles' young Cards are going through those growing pains to start the year. In a match that was postponed by rain, and had a delayed start Sunday morning, LU finally stepped on the court and put up a tough fight before falling to the Rice Owls, 5-2, in Houston.
 
"We played in some pretty close matches on the individual courts today," said LU head coach Scott Shankles. "We got behind early in doubles and we made it too tough on ourselves to come back and get the doubles point. It was a very similar story in singles, we lost first sets on four of courts and couldn't quite get ourselves back into the match. Despite the setback, there are still lessons to be learned from this that will help us moving forward."
 
It marked the second week in a row that LU has had a match either cancelled or postponed due to the weather, as the match against the Owls was originally slated for Saturday afternoon. The Cardinals put up a strong fight in doubles play before Rice won the point with victories on courts 1 and 2.
 
The Owls edged out the Red and White on court one as the team of Nicolas Mayr and Benny Schweizer fell to Rice's Eric Rutledge and Sumit Sarkar, 6-4. The team of Arthur Serafim and Roy Stepanov were locked in a 4-4 tie with the Owls' Mohamed Abdel-Aziz and Jared Aiman before the match was halted do to a victory on court 2. It was the second-straight match where the Cardinals were locked in tied match late on one of the doubles courts and didn't get the opportunity to play out the decision due to the overall point being decided.
 
The Cardinals wasted no time in tying the match with a victory at No. 6 singles. Serafim bested Aiman in straight sets, 6-2, 6-0, to pull the Cards even at 1-1. With the match tied, Big Red was looking to seize on that momentum at the No. 1 singles position. Schweizer forced a tiebreak in the opening set and pulled out a victory over Rutledge, 7-6 (7-2). Schweizer's second set was every bit as tough as neither player was willing to surrender momentum. Set two also went to a tiebreak before Rutledge could tie the match with a 7-6 (12-10) victory in the second set to force the deciding third.
 
While Schweizer was continuing to play in the third, Rice was able to jump back in front of the Cards, 3-1, with victories at Nos. 3 and 5 singles. Trailing by two, the Cardinals had another match go into a third set as junior Sebastian Santibanez battled back from an opening set loss to win his second set, 6-3, and force a third set.
 
Unfortunately, the Cardinals split the two three-set matches, with Santibanez picking up a victory on court 2, 3-6, 6-3, 10-4, over Sarkar. The Owls closed the match by winning two of the final three singles competitions.
 
"The weather had an impact on us only in the fact that we didn't get to play our two scheduled matches last week which would have given our younger guys more experience. It is very tough for younger players to grow when opportunities are taken away from them due to weather. As far as today was concerned, Rice had to deal with the exact same issues we did."
 
The Cardinals return to action Saturday, Feb. 3, when they will host Jacksonville State. The match against the Gamecocks is slated to begin at 11 a.m. from the Thompson Family Tennis Center.