LOGAN, W.Va. -             The UC Men's Tennis team suffered their second loss of 2014 on Tuesday evening to the University of Pikeville at The Chief Logan Tennis Center. The UC Men drop to 0-2 on the 2014 season, after suffering their first loss to Division 1 Morehead State on Sunday.

Doubles was hotly contested on all courts, with Pikeville taking 1^st doubles and 3^rd doubles. Despite being up an early break, James Gammell and Dennis Okoth fell behind midway through the set before rallying back to be down just a break at 5-7, but lost a close game to fall 8-5 to Sven Rodenbusch and Dmitry Babenkov. Pikeville's Smith and Singer also managed to fend off a valiant comeback attempt by Charleston's Jacob Lorenz and Gabe Seymour to win 8-6. Charleston did manage to notch a victory in its 2^nd doubles tandem of seniors Matt Sherba and Davey Nelson, who broke Pikeville late in the set to take a 7-5 lead. Following the break, Sherba  and Nelson were able to win four out of the five next points to secure Charleston's first point on the board.

In singles Pikeville notched a 5-1 advantage over Charleston. Pikeville notched a close victory in 1^st singles over Charleston's Gammell 7-5, 6-4. Gammell rallied late after being down 5-2, forcing a break of serve and holding serve to get the match to 5-4, but was unable to force one more break of serve. Matt Sherba was able to recover after losing the second set in 2^nd singles to win in a 3^rd set against Babenkov 6-1, 1-6, 6-4. Dennis Okoth fell in 3^rd singles 7-5, 6-2 to Francois Billet while Jacob Lorenz came close but lost after a very tightly fought match to hard-hitting Pawl Tarasewicsz. Pikeville also won 5^th and 6^th singles against Charleston's Varun Shah and Nick Bakos 6-2, 6-1, and 6-1, 6-1.

Charleston will look to rebound in its first true home match on Friday against Bluefield State, who last year won the Atlantic Regional, advancing to the Sweet 16 of NCAAs. Despite no longer being in the same conference, captain Matt Sherba doesn't expect for there to be any loss of focus, "I feel really good about where the team is right now, we've been really competitive these last two matches and we are getting good play at all positions, so I think we are set up for a really strong season."

Coach Santen echoed the senior's sentiment to the team after the match, "I think we are getting a lot better every time we go out to play, and that's the objective, to get better after every match and peak at the end of the season to make a run. These early season matches are good tune-ups heading into the Mountain East Conference."