BOILING SPRINGS, N.C. – The Gardner-Webb men's tennis team dropped their first home match of the season 5-2 to the UNCG Spartans this afternoon moving Gardner-Webb to a 4-5 overall record this year.

The Runnin' Bulldogs got off to a hot start this afternoon winning at all three doubles positions to take the early 1-0 lead in the match. The No. 1 doubles team of Nikita Zverkov and Ernest Alberch defeated UNCG's Phillips/Thompson 7-6(1). Senior Brendan Dempsey teamed with junior Benjamin Kaszas at the No. 2 doubles to beat the Spartans team of Smith/Bryan 6-3, while the all freshman No. 3 doubles team of Adam Schmidt and Yaroslav Prostakov easily defeated Walker/Albright of UNCG 6-2 to round out Gardner-Webb's doubles sweep.

The Spartans cooled off Gardner-Webb in singles play holding GWU to only one singles win in today's match. Junior Benjamin Kaszas lost his No. 1 singles match 6-4, 6-4 to the Spartans Randy Phillips. Fellow junior Zverkov picked up the only singles win for GWU by defeating Daniel Mack 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 in his No. 2 singles match. Zverkov is now 4-3 at the No. 2 slot on the season.

The lone freshman for GWU in the singles lineup Prostakov won the first set of his No. 3 singles match 6-4, but then dropped the next two sets 2-6, 2-6 falling to Cameron Smith from UNCG.

Senior Alberch dropped his No. 4 singles match 7-6(4), 6-3, while fellow seniors Dempsey and Korhan Ates dropped their matches 7-6(4), 7-5 and 7-6(5), 2-6, 6-2 at the No. 5 and No. 6 singles positions respectively.

Gardner-Webb men's tennis will have a quick turn around after todays match as they travel to Elon, N.C. tomorrow March 1st, to face off against the Elon University Phoenix at 2:00 p.m.