KOHLER, Wis. – Quentin Barthe (Fr.-Tabanac, France) and Matt Stolz (So.-Wauwatosa, Wis.) both went 2-0 in singles play to lead the Lakeland College men's tennis team in competitive losses to Aurora (Ill.) University and Wisconsin Lutheran College Saturday at the Sports Core.

The Muskies were defeated by Aurora 7-2 in their first match of the day and later fell to WLC 6-3 in their second dual. Lakeland continued to show improvement but dropped to 1-8 overall and is now 1-3 in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference.

Barthe won both of his matches at No. 5 singles, defeating Aurora's Zach Wuthrich 6-0, 6-0 and Wisconsin Lutheran's Austin Wagenknecht 6-1, 6-2. He also went 1-1 in doubles play, pairing up with Paul Elzinga (Sr.-Howards Grove, Wis.) at No. 2 doubles to defeat WLC's Derek Sallmann and Ben Wordell 9-8, including 7-2 in the tiebreaker.

Stolz moved up to No. 4 singles and also went 2-0. He defeated Aurora's Matt Butler, as Butler retired in the second set with Stolz ahead 7-6 (9-7), 3-0. He also won in straight sets over Adam Breister of Wisconsin Lutheran, 6-4, 6-2.

The Muskies were close to wins in several other matches on the day, with the narrowest defeat coming for Elzinga against Aurora. His match against Jake Lipka at No. 3 singles went to a third set before Lipka finally pulled out a 6-2, 3-6, 11-9 victory.

Lakeland's ShoSean Fujino (Fr.-Tokyo, Japan) and Koki Saito (Sr.-Tokyo, Japan) also played well at No. 3 doubles against Wisconsin Lutheran, eventually losing 8-5 to Breister and Wagenknecht.

"We are finally coming together and playing good solid tennis," said Muskie head coach Casey Carr. "We're really close as a team. I wish we had one more month of non-conference matches to get us better prepared for the conference season. This team isn't far along from being able to walk with a certain swagger that the top teams have.

The Muskies are back in action Sunday when they face Concordia University Wisconsin at 11 a.m. in Mequon in another NACC dual match.