From the beginning, it was clear that the men's tennis team was in for a tougher match against Western Illinois.

In the morning on Saturday, Marquette cruised through a 7-0 sweep of a short-handed Chicago State team, but when the Fighting Leathernecks came into the Helfaer Tennis Stadium for the afternoon match they brought a high intensity with them.

Both the No. 1 and No. 2 doubles matches went back and forth, without any breaks, until the twos were at 6-6 and the ones were at 8-7. The No. 3 team of sophomore Brett Binkley and senior Ricky Servoss had already won their match 8-3, so Marquette needed just one of the two matches to go its way for the doubles point. But someone had to get a break.

A point away from taking the match's first break, Marquette's No. 2 team of freshmen Stephen Shao and Trent Hagan charged the net together only to have the ball lobbed over their heads. They raced back together as Hagan called for the shot, and he lobbed it back into a Chicago State slam, which Shao managed to return. When the ball came back, Shao took it again, this time sending it down the line and forcing a tough, stretching backhand that popped over the net and out of bounds to give Marquette the game.

They held serve in the next game to win the match over Western Illinois' Justin Junck and Neil Lesinski and take the doubles point for Marquette. The momentum from winning a close match carried into the singles matches, where both Shao and Hagan handled their opponents relatively easily.

"(Winning doubles) definitely keeps the intensity high," Hagan said, "It raises your expectations for singles. Your expectations are to do well."

Hagan's match lived up to those expectations and he won 6-2, 6-0 over Junck. Shao also took advantage of the intensity of the doubles match, beating Sisay Sellasie 6-2, 6-4. Overall, the momentum carried the Golden Eagles to a 5-2 win.

Head coach Steve Rodecap was pleased to see his young players play such a key role in the victory.

"(Hagan) is playing at a pretty high level for a freshman," Rodecap said. "…We've been at home which I think helps them (the freshmen) too."

But the one thing he would still like to see the young players improve on is their ability to close matches out.

"When you got people down, you gotta keep them down," Rodecap said.

Hagan was able to do just that throughout the day. Against Chicago State, he and Shao won doubles 8-3 and then he beat Dejan Avramovic 6-2, 6-2. His wins over Western Illinois were even more impressive, considering the intensity of the afternoon match.

Senior Eigis Vedrickas played in two of the best matches of the year thus far against the Swedish star of the Roughnecks squad, Martin Bostrom.

It took a tiebreaker for Vedrickas and Ian Kawas to beat Bostrom and Sean Ragee-Nelson in doubles 9-8(4). Bostrom came back in No. 1 singles to beat Vedrickas 6-4, 6-4 in an intense match, but Vedrickas felt as if he will win those types of matches later in the year.

"It was obviously a pretty high quality level of tennis," Vedrickas said. "The only reason I feel like I didn't win today (was because) I didn't have enough close matches like that under my belt."