WILLIAMSVILLE, N.Y. -- The Daemen University men's tennis team dropped a tight heartbreaker, 4-3, to the University of the District of Columbia on Saturday night in their final match of the year. The Wildcats finish the year with a 4-15 overall record and 0-6 record in East Coast Conference play. Prior to the start of the match, the Wildcats honored a pair of players, Rohan Chitanand (Den Haag, Netherlands) and Alex Lumanog (Albuquerque, N.M.) for Senior Night in their final home match of their Daemen careers. 

The Wildcats took two of the three doubles pairings to win the first point of the match. Daemen collected a win at No. 1 doubles as junior Lasse Mergens (Bochum, Germany) and senior Rohan Chitanand (Den Haag, Netherlands) took down the UDC top pair of Sebastiano Palma and Elouan Queguiner, 6-4. UDC won second doubles (6-3) over junior Lucas Garcia (Bogota, Columbia) and freshman Mitch Pollack (Winnipeg, Man.). The Firebirds did not field a team for third doubles, so Daemen won by default.

UDC rallied to win four of the six singles matches to narrowly edge out the Wildcats 4-3 in the tightly contested match. Returning from an injury to play in his final collegiate match, Lumanog battled but fell (4-6, 5-7) at top singles. Garcia dropped No. 2 singles (3-6, 5-7). Mergens was the sole Wildcat to take his singles match up to three sets, falling 7-5, 6-7, 1-6 at No. 3 singles. In his last match as a Wildcat, Chitanand fell 3-6, 6-7 (3) in fourth singles. Pollack closed out his freshman campaign by winning his match at fifth singles (6-1, 6-0). UDC did not field a player at sixth singles to give Daemen the win by default.