Box Score ELON, N.C. – The Gardner-Webb men's tennis team dropped a heart-breaking 4-3 decision to host Elon Thursday afternoon at the Jimmy Powell Tennis Center. 

The Runnin' Bulldogs fell to 8-2 on the season while the Phoenix, which won their fourth-straight match, improved to 4-3.

Elon won all three matches to secure a competitive doubles point. 

Playing the No. 3 spot, Gardner-Webb senior Cathal Butler (Dublin, Ireland) and junior Alex Lepine (Montreal, Canada) fell to Oskar Antinheimo and Jack Curtis, who rolled to their fourth straight win together for Elon. The duo leads the team this season with five doubles victories and has not lost more than three games in any of those contests. 

The reigning Colonial Athletic Association Player of the Week Juan Sengariz and Ben Zipay clinched the doubles point for the Phoenix by winning 7-4 in a tiebreak on Court 2 over the Dawgs tandem of junior Numa Lemieux-Monette (Montral, Canada) and freshman Jurle Terblanche (Perth, Australia) (6-7).

Daniel Martin and Dylan Heap extended their winning streak to four at No. 1 doubles with a tiebreak win over the 'Dawgs Eduardo Dias (Parana, Brazil) and Chrisjan Van Wyk (Pretoria, South Africa) (6-7). The duo won 7-3 in the breaker to complete the doubles sweep for Elon. 

In singles play, Lepine lost on Court No.2, (2-6, 4-6) to Elon's Veliko Krstic to put the Phoenix ahead 2-0.

Dias, the reigning Big South Conference Player of the Week, responded with a 6-4, 6-3 win at the No.1 spot over Martin to cut Elon's lead to 2-1.

Chrisjan Van Wyk won his opening set at the No. 5 position, but Curtis rallied to win 7-6 (4), 3-6, 0-6.

Gardner-Webb pulled back within 3-2 when Zipay was forced to retire down 2-1 in the third set on Court 6 to Terblanche (3-6, 7-5, 2-1).

The match was decided on Court No.3 as Lemieux-Monette lost the opening set to Antinheimo 3-6 before winning the second 6-4.

In the third set, Lemieux-Monette jumped out to a 4-1 lead before Antinheimo won three straight games to tie the score 4-4. The two battled continued an epic battle where Lemieux-Monette finally lost 6-7 (3).

In the final match on Court No.4, junior Kim Niethammer (Harrenburg, Germany) prevailed over Sengariz 6-7 (7), 6-3, 7-5.

"We went toe-to-toe with a very good Elon team today," said Gardner-Webb men's tennis coach Mike Griffith. "The match lasted four hours and we never backed down or went away. We are really dialed in for our next match."

UP NEXT: - Gardner -Webb will travel to Buies Creek to face former Big South opponent Campbell on Saturday (2/24).  Matches at the Nesbit Tennis Center get underway at 11AM.