ORLANDO, Fla. – The St. Olaf College men's tennis team finished off its four-match trip to Florida with a 6-3 loss to Whitworth University on Thursday morning at the USTA National Campus.

St. Olaf (2-9) started the match by sweeping the three doubles matches before Whitworth (4-10) took all six of the singles matches to come away with the victory. The match was the first meeting between the two programs.

The Oles surged out to a 3-0 lead in doubles with wins from the tandems of sophomore Bogdan Vizoli/senior Max Loesch, first year Marjan Veldic/senior Jakub Belik, and senior Karsten Johnson/first year Ryan Birnesser. Johnson and Birnesser put the first point on the board with an 8-2 win at No. 3 doubles for their second victory in as many days.

Veldic and Belik followed with an 8-5 win at No. 2 doubles before Vizoli and Loesch closed out the sweep by winning a tiebreaker 7-4 at No. 1 doubles.

In singles, the Pirates claimed five straight-set victories and picked up a super-tiebreaker win to rally for the win. The closest two score lines came at the top-two spots. Veldic won St. Olaf's lone set of the day but fell 7-6 (7-4), 3-6, 1-0 (10-5) at No. 2 singles, while Vizoli dropped a pair of tiebreakers at No. 1 singles.

The Oles are scheduled to begin Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) play at Saint John's University on Saturday, April 13 at 2 p.m.