NEWBERRY, S.C. - The Newberry College men's tennis team met Erskine on Tuesday afternoon hoping to ground the Flying Fleet, but Erskine took advantage of two doubles wins to edge Newberry, 5-4.

Newberry moves to 1-9 overall while Erskine improves to 5-6. The loss marks the fourth time Newberry has lost by a 5-4 margin this year.

The scarlet and gray fell behind in doubles play, 2-1, and split the six singles matches evenly with Erskine. The team of Maxim Sukharev (Vilnius, Lithuania) and Lucas Mattos (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) earned Newberry its first win by outlasting Caleb Barnes and Angelo Ciarrocchi, 8-5. Pavle Popovic (Belgrade, Serbia) and Christian Ranguelov (Vienna, Austria) fell to Nemanja Brcan and James Hoatson, 8-2, while Samuel Cartin (Irmo, S.C.) and Scott Busbee (Columbia, S.C.) came up short against Fabio Ciarrocchi and Vincent Chauvette, 8-2.

Newberry would find improvement in singles play. Christian Ranguelov picked up his team-leading eighth win of the season with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Angelo Ciarrocchi. Maxim Sukharev squeezed out a close 7-6 win in the first set over against Nemanja Brcan thanks to a 7-3 tiebreaker victory, before dispatching Brcan with a 6-2 second set win. Lucas Mattos also earned a win on the day, knocking of James Hoatson, 6-1, 6-0. Unfortunately for Newberry, the squad fell short by one point after Pavle Popovic lost to Caleb Barnes, 6-2, 6-3, Scott Busbee dropped a match to Fabio Ciarrocchi, 6-1, 6-0, and Samuel Cartin fell to Vincent Chauvette, 6-0, 6-1.

Newberry hits the road on Thursday, April 1, for a South Atlantic Conference tilt against Wingate in Wingate, N.C. The match is slated to start at 2:30 p.m.