NEWBERRY, S.C. - After a two-match road trip, the Newberry College men's tennis team returned to Cannon Courts but even a home court advantage was not enough as the Wolves found themselves on the wrong end of a 7-2 decision against North Greenville.

While the scarlet and gray fought hard in the doubles matches, all three would wind up going to the visiting Crusaders. Vinicius Botelho (Fortzleza, Brazil) and David Sons (Lexington, S.C.) could not solve the duo of Timur Kamilov and Luis Campos, falling by an 8-5 score.

The pair of Michael Saunders (Christchurch, New Zealand) and Mohammed Chakir (Rabat, Morocco) came up just short in an 8-6 loss to Kesha Sedov and Hugo Ciarrocchi while the Newberry natives James Bethea and Jeffrey Kiser dropped an 8-4 decision against Neil Tasker and Thomas Clark.

Newberry displayed new life in the singles flights as Saunders defeated Kamilov 6-3, 6-1 before Botelho narrowed the gap to just one with a defeat of Sedov. Botelho won the first set 6-1 before the fatigued Crusader was forced to retire from the competition.

Unfortunately, the Wolves could not pull even as Chakir lost 6-2, 6-2 to Campos in the No. 3 one-on-one battle. Michael Woolard (Lexington, S.C.) was defeated 6-1, 6-2 by Tasker before Sons lost 6-1, 6-2 to Ciarrocchi.

After dropping the first set against Clark 6-3, Joel Hicks (West Columbia, S.C.) battled back to tie the match with a 7-6 victory in set two. The freshman could not give the Wolves an additional team point as he dropped the tiebreaker by a 10-6 score.

The pack returns to South Atlantic Conference play this weekend as it travels to Jefferson City, Tenn., to take on the Eagles of Carson-Newman. Match time between the squads is set for 1 p.m. on March 26.