It is often said that second place feels worse than last place. Second place means you played well, but came up just short in the biggest moment.

Two Marquette players experienced this bittersweet finish on the last day of the Marquette Fall Invitational Sunday.

Senior Eigis Vedrickas and freshman Eric Fleming came up short in the singles finals and flight B singles finals, respectively, at the Helfaer Tennis Center.

Vedrickas won both of his opening-day matches convincingly and on Saturday, he got a chance to avenge an earlier loss against Mark Tate of Northern Illinois. Tate defeated Vedrickas in the opening round of the Milwaukee Tennis Classic Sept. 23.

This time around Vedrickas came out on top with a 7-5, 6-3 victory. To win the match, Vedrickas had to overcome the mental block of facing a player that had beaten him before, he said.

"(Vedrickas) is starting to peak at the right time," said head coach Steve Rodecap.

But he could not carry the energy of the first two days into the final match, where he lost to Northern Illinios' Brian Livingston.

"I give credit to him," Vedrickas said. "He came out with big shots when it mattered."

Like Vedrickas, Fleming played well the first two days of the tournament, but seemed to burn out on the final day, and lost badly, 6-0, 6-2, to Northern Illinois' David Katz.

"Eric, he played a pretty poor match in the finals. … I was a little disappointed with his effort there," Rodecap said.

The one bright spot of Sunday was sophomore Pete Van Lieshout, who won the flight B consolation finals. Van Lieshout lost his first match to Eric Huffman of DePaul.

"He lost a tough match in the first round," Rodecap said. "He certainly had chances to win that match. He let that one slip by."

Van Lieshout was visibly disappointed with himself after letting the first match get away, but came back to win three straight matches, including the consolation finals.

With three players playing on the final day, Marquette had a good tournament as far as singles are concerned, but their doubles play was less impressive. Rodecap took the blame for the disappointing play in doubles, because he used several different line-ups, and the players were not completely comfortable in the matches.

"That's the beauty of playing in the fall. You can do things like that and see who fits well and who doesn't," Rodecap said.

Rodecap also has also been experimenting with the players as individuals.

He said the coaching staff changed sophomore Brett Binkley's grip earlier this fall to give him more power, and he is still getting used to the new techniques. For the second weekend in a row, Binkley was able to get a big win when he defeated DePaul's number-two player, Inchauste Gabe.

"It's kinda hard to focus on (the new grip) in tournaments," Binkley said. "I focus on that in practice, and when I get into matches, I just focus on competing."

Binkley will travel to Ann Arbor, Mich., for the ITA Midwest Championships this weekend along with Vedrickas and freshman Stephen Shao, who did not play in the Marquette Invitational.

This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on October 18, 2005.