April 21, 2017 - The Concordia-Chicago men's tennis team returned to the home courts this afternoon to take on their Division Street rival, the Dominican University Stars. Today's match was not only a meeting of conference opponents but also the two sides in the River Forest Rivalry cup, a first-year competition sponsored by Northwestern Mutual. With a win today, the Cougars could have locked up the trophy for 2016-17, but instead the Stars evened the series as they took an 8-1 victory.

The Cougars took the early lead as the first doubles team of Ariel Manjarrez and Alex Vieaux played their best match of the season and defeated the Stars' tandem of John Mysz and Camden Knights by an 8-2 score. However, both second and third doubles wrapped up minutes after first was completed, and Dominican took both those points. In second, Frank Lally and Tony Morales topped Josh Krzyzanowski and Ryan Popowcer 8-2, and the third team of Tarik Abdullah and Chamdler Allen blanked Ben Fluga and Rudy Croon 8-0.

Although Dominican would sweep singles play, Concordia put up some very competitive battles. Manjarrez and Mysz waged the longest battle at first singles, Mysz eventually prevailing by 6-4, 6-4 scores. Vieaux and Popowcer fought back with strong second sets, although Abdullah bet Vieaux at second, 6-1 and 7-5, and Knights defeated Popowcer 6-2, 7-5 at fourth. The third singles match saw Krzyzanowski battle back from an 0-6 loss in set one before falling 3-6 in the second set to Lally,

The Cougars (1-10, 1-5 NACC) will complete the season next Saturday, April 29 when they host Edgewood College and Marian University.