WEST POINT, N.Y. ? The Monmouth University men's tennis were defeated in their Sunday night non-conference matchup against the defending Patriot League champion Army Black Knights, 5-2, at the Lichtenberg Tennis Center. With the loss, the Hawks fell to 2-4 on the young season as the Knights moved to 2-7 in their campaign. Junior Corey Forrest (Ocala, Fla./Trinity Catholic) shined at singles and the Hawks squeezed out a doubles point to give MU their only points of the match.

With the Hawks pushing the Black Knights into five match points, Forrest pulled out the lone two set win for Monmouth at second singles, defeating Army's Girdley, 7-6, 6-3. At third singles, Vik Gupta (Princeton, N.J./Princeton Day) fell just short to the Black Knight's Albornoz, pushing his second set to the limit, 6-4, 7-6.
In the evening's closest matchup, Laurance Heads (Stockton-on-Tees, England/Repton School) pushed his fifth singles game to the very edge, losing 7-6, 7-6 to Army's Van Velzer.

After being shut out two days earlier, the Hawks capitalized on two of their three doubles matches to give Monmouth their first doubles point in March. Opening up doubles play, the duo of Benjamin Evenden (Cresco, Pa./Ridgewood N.J.) and Ian Terpilowski (Mount Macedon, Victoria, Australia/Braemar College) partnered up at first doubles to defeat Army's Albornoz/Girdley, 8-5. While narrowly losing at second doubles, teammates Gupta and David Sherwood (Little Egg Harbor, N.J./Pinelands) pulled out a much needed victory at third singles, 8-6.

With the close loss, the Black Knights are still undefeated against Monmouth in ten matches since 1987. Army defeated the Hawks last season, 6-1, and were victorious in early spring season's matchups at the Army Invite. Army swept the three doubles matches and won four of six matches at the Invite in January.

Monmouth's road trip continues when they travel down to Florida to take on Connecticut and St. Joe's in back-to-back days, with the first matchup on Tuesday, March 10th. First serve time is TBD.