Box Score BEAUMONT, Texas – For the second time in as many days, the Lamar University men's tennis team stepped on the court to take on the Mavericks – Monday's version of the Mavs came from Omaha, Neb. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, the result would be the same as Big Red dropped a 5-2 decision to Omaha Monday afternoon at the Thompson Family Tennis Center.
 
"I felt like we battled harder today," said LU head coach Scott Shankles. "There was a lot of improvement in the area of 'if we didn't win the first set, will we be competitive in the second.' Today, we were more competitive, but when won the first set we didn't close out the match. That prevented us from being able to apply pressure and winning the overall match. Our guys are gaining experience, but we need to be able score doubles points and close out matches after taking first-set leads."
 
After dropping the doubles point, the Cardinals stormed out of the gate in singles competition to take their first lead of the match. Freshman Nicolas Mayr wasted no time eliminating his counterpart on court five. Mayr dominated Omaha's Matt Dunn for the easy victory in straight sets, 6-2, 6-0.
 
As if following a pre-determined script, rookie Carlos Paton Canal followed suit moments later with a 6-2, 6-2 decision over the Mavericks Marko Minic on court six. Canal's victory gave the Red and White a 2-1 edge needing just two more wins on the four remaining courts for the overall victory.
 
The Cardinals were in good shape on the remaining courts taking the opening set on two of the four, but that is when momentum began to shift in favor of the visitors.
 
Senior Benny Schweizer dropped his second set to Omaha's Abdoul Ouattara, while junior Sebastian Santibanez was taken to a tiebreak in the second set on court one. The Mavericks' Razvan Grigorescu gained the upper hand in the tiebreak to take the set. While courts one and two were headed to a third, the Mavericks reclaimed a one-point advantage by picking up victories at Nos. 4 and 3, respectively.
 
The two Omaha victories in the middle of the order put LU in a position of needing to sweep the final two matches for the win, but the Cards came up short on both courts. Schweizer dropped his third set, 6-3, and Santibanez was defeated 6-4 in the final.
 
The Cardinals will now look to gear things up for New Orleans Friday when they return to Southland Conference action. The match against the Privateers will begin at 3 p.m. in New Orleans.
 
"We have an important Southland match coming against a good New Orleans squad," said Shankles. "We will take what we have learned from the first 13 matches – both the good and bad moments – and apply that to our contest against UNO."
 
-LU CARDINALS-