MORGANTOWN, W. Va. - The Daemen College men's tennis team suffered its fourth close defeat of the spring season today, falling by the slimmest of margins (5-4) to host Davis & Elkins College in non-conference action at Ridgeview Racquet Club.

The loss, Daemen's ninth-straight, sends the Wildcats to 2-11 in dual matches so far this season.  Additional tight losses have come this spring to Cedarville University (6-3), Le Moyne College (6-3) and Niagara University (5-3).

D&E, the two-time defending Great Midwest Athletic Conference champions, snap a two-match slide and improve to 5-6 overall.

The guests took control of the match early on by earning wins in first and second doubles.  Daemen head coach Stephen Beatty shuffled the lineup a bit and got wins from Joey Gentile (East Amherst, N.Y./Niagara University) and Gregory Lowe (East Aurora, N.Y./East Aurora) in the top spot, and from John LeMar (North Tonawanda, N.Y./North Tonawanda) and Mark Veitengruber (Rockford, Mich./Rockford) in the second slot.  The Gentile-Lowe victory came over D&E's Thomas Judd (Leicester, United Kingdom) and Samuel Vallieres (Montreal, Canada) and it gives the Daemen duo its team-best third doubles win of the season.  LeMar and Veitengruber were 8-4 winners over Jack Clifton (Purley, United Kingdom) and Pierre Baudier (France) for their second doubles win of the year.

D&E's Vincent Hamon (St. Barthelemy, France) and Tristram Spitsnaugle (Vienna, W. Va.) won in third doubles, 8-4, against DC's Justin Milner (Ithaca, N.Y./Ithaca) and Andrew LeMar (North Tonawanda, N.Y./North Tonawanda) to avoid the doubles sweep.

In singles play, D&E came back with four wins out of six matches to pick up the come-from-behind victory in the dual match.

Daemen's two singles victories came from the LeMar brothers.  Andrew, a redshirt-freshman, won in third singles, 7-6, 6-3 over Judd for his eighth singles win of the season, second on the team to only Veitengruber's 11.  John, a junior, won 6-3, 6-2 in sixth singles over Vallieres.  It was his fifth singles win of the season overall as he improved to 3-1 in the sixth singles position.

Gentile (second singles) and Lowe (fifth singles) narrowly missed sending their respective matches to a decisive third set in Daemen's quest for a match-winning fifth point.  Both dropped their opening set and then fell in the second by identical 7-5 scores.

Daemen opens East Coast Conference play when they visit Queens College on April 1.