After a second straight close defeat, the Luther men’s tennis team got back on the winning side of the ledger with an (8-1) win over UW-La Crosse in the second match of the day at the Winona Tennis Center in Winona, Minn.

Nick Mozena and James Ayer rolled to an (8-2) victory at No. 2 doubles, defeating Anthony Mirasola and Dante Pitera.  The Norse also jumped out to early leads at No. 1 and No. 3, but the Eagles regained momentum by breaking back at both spots eventually winning at No. 3 and forcing No. 1 to a deciding tie-breaker.  Vic Mirasola and Matt Bulger picked up an (8-5) win against Luther’s Samuel Cychosz and Matt Knutson to make it a 1-1 match.  The Eagles looked to take a 2-1 lead as Kevin McMillen and Kyle McGrane led 6-4 in the tie-breaker, but Ramesh Karki and Quinn Foley fought off a pair of match points and rallied to earn a key (9-8 (8-6)) win, giving the Norse a boost heading into singles play.

As No. 1 doubles was wrapping up, Mozena raced out to a big lead at No. 2 singles, eventually cruising to a (6-1, 6-0) win against Vic Mirasola.  Torstein Jystad was also a first set winner and closed out the second set for a (6-2, 6-4) win over Anthony Mirasola, making it a 4-1 Norse lead.  Meanwhile, Ayer dropped the first set at No. 5 before rolling in the second set to force another super tie-breaker.  Once again, he came through with a (3-6, 6-0, (10-8)) victory to clinch the match. 

Luther won the final three matches in straight sets to finish off the day.  Karki was a (7-5, 6-2) winner over McMillen at No. 1, Bellio beat McGrane (6-3, 6-1) at No. 3, and Foley knocked off Pitera (7-5, 6-2) at No. 6.

The Norse are 2-2 overall and will be on the courts on Saturday, Mar. 2 when the team travels to Holland, Mich., to face Case Western and Earlham in a pair of neutral site matches. The Norse will wrap up the trip with a match at Kalamazoo on Sunday, Mar. 3.

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