WILLIAMSTOWN, MA. – The 21^st ranked Wesleyan men's tennis team was defeated in their first competition of spring, falling to 6^th ranked Williams 7-2 on the road. The Ephs open the spring season with a NESCAC victory, moving to 1-0 (1-0 NESCAC). Wesleyan drops their first match of the spring season, falling to 0-1 (0-1 NESCAC).

The Cardinals took two of the three doubles matches, to secure their two victories on the afternoon. JT Bilski '26 and Ben Mitchell '24 combined to secure Wesleyan's first victory of the day, defeating Williams' Matt Kandel and Chase Cohen 8-5. Next up for the Cardinals was the first-year duo of Harry Collomb '26 and Chase Kasday '26 who secured their first wins against NESCAC competition with a hard-fought 8-6 victory over Shawn Berdia and Karan Amin.

Williams was able to take the third and final doubles match, with Simon Volkema and Jason Shuler able to edge out Wesleyan's two underclassman in Tai MacDonald '26 and Max Lustgarten '25 8-5.

The Ephs controlled all six singles matches to come away with a 7-2 team victory. Cohen was able to defeat Bilski 6-3, 6-3 for Williams first singles win of the afternoon. Kandel followed up his teammates victory with one of his own, controlling the match through both sets on way to a 6-0, 6-2 triumph over Collomb.

Mitchell and Berdia went at it in the third singles match of Saturday, with the Ephs sophomore barely coming away with a 7-5, 7-5 victory. Williams was able to take the next two matches to extend their advantage to 6-2, with Shuler topping MacDonald 6-1, 6-1 and Volkema defeating Lustgarten 6-2, 6-1. In the final singles competition of the day, Wesleyan's Harry Portnoy '24 pushed Williams' Andrew Chong, but Chong was able to hang on to a 6-2, 6-3 two-set victory.

The Cardinals will be right back at it Sunday with another NESCAC foe in Connecticut College. Wesleyan will look for their first team win of the spring season against the Camels in New London starting at 10 am.