AURORA, Ill. – In its second match of the season, the Milwaukee tennis team came up just short in Saturday's dual against the Eastern Illinois Panthers. The black & gold fell 4-3 in the all-panthers match from Aurora, Ill., held at the Vaughan Athletic Center.
 
MKE went toe-to-toe with EIU throughout the entire dual and came within striking distance of winning the match, but a couple of three-set matches forced by EIU gave the Panthers from the south the upper hand.
 
"This was a tough one for us to lose," said head coach Jason Potthoff. "We played great doubles and won three first sets, and I knew we were going to turn it around on at least one of the courts we dropped first sets on, so a 4-3 or even 5-2 team win was within reach today. I give a lot of credit to EIU, however. They fought hard and made fewer mistakes on deuce points and late in sets, and that was the difference today."
 
The black & gold got off to a great start in doubles, taking the first two matches to earn the point. At No. 1, Nicole Clarke and Nikki Milner improved to 2-0 together as they defeated Rachel Papavasilopoulous and Elizaveta Bukraba-Ulanova, 6-2. With similar results at No. 2, MKE's Mayya Perova and Anika Tylek beat Karla Contreras and Brittany Steven 6-3.
 
In singles, senior Nicole Clarke came back from being down a set after dropping the first set 6-2, and win the next two sets, 6-3, 6-4. Picking up the other singles win was junior Lucy Harper who won in straight sets, 7-5, 6-4.
 
Both Anna Daniel Fuentes and Anika Tylek won their first set respectively, but were pushed to three sets with their EIU opponents coming out on top winning the next two sets.
 
Next weekend, Milwaukee will split home and away duals traveling first to Northern Illinois Saturday, Feb. 1, and will come back to home to host Western Illinois the next day. Both matches will begin at 1 p.m.