MARSHALL, Texas – The East Texas Baptist University men's tennis team stumbled against visiting Belhaven (Miss.) University, 8-1, on Thursday afternoon at the Veterans Memorial Tennis Complex. The defeat puts ETBU at 3-7 overall this season.

To begin the action, Belhaven (12-2) claimed a sweep of the three doubles flights to assume a 3-0 lead heading into singles play. In the No. 1-seeded doubles match, ETBU's Cody Highsmith and Tyler Tolopka lost in a tiebreaker, 9-8 (11-9), against Belhaven's Harry Amor and Tomas Ojeda. At the No. 2 doubles flight, Dillon Deatherage and Ryan Pearce were edged by Omar Lopez and Rene Ramos, 8-5.

Moving into the singles competition, ETBU claimed its lone point of the day in the No. 1 flight. Tolopka bested Rafael Siqueira in the top-seeded singles match, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5).

In its next match, ETBU begins its American Southwest Conference East Division schedule, playing at LeTourneau (Texas) University, 3 p.m., on April 1.