Spring break was no party for the Ferris men’s ten­nis team, as the team lost four of five out­ings dur­ing its annual spring break trip.

After begin­ning the road trip with a dom­i­nat­ing 7–2 romp over William Jewel (Mo.) on March 8 to improve to 3–0 over­all on the sea­son, Ferris dropped its next five matches to fall to 3–5 over­all on the season.

Following the vic­tory over William Jewel, Ferris suf­fered its first loss of the sea­son the next day against Division I foe Missouri-Kansas City in a 5–2 con­test, with the UMKC win­ning the con­test by sweep­ing the dou­bles com­pe­ti­tion 3–0.

The Bulldogs, who were ranked at 44^th in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Division II poll prior to the spring break trip, added another loss as they dropped a 7–2 con­test against No. 26-ranked Northwest Missouri State on March 10.

The slide did not stop though, as Ferris was dom­i­nated 7–2 by No. 31-ranked Southwest Baptist (Mo.) on March 11 and was blanked 5–0 the fol­low­ing day against No. 22-ranked Washburn (Kan.) University to con­clude the spring road trip.

The Bulldogs returned to Michigan only to be shutout by Division I oppo­nent Western Michigan 7–0 on March 15. Ferris is 4–24 all-time against the Broncos.

Despite the recent los­ing trend for Ferris, fresh­man Arin Enge said the team’s con­fi­dence level is pretty high.

“I think the losses over spring break really gave us time to find out who we are as a team,” said Enge.

The Bulldogs will get a chance to reverse their recent luck when they begin GLIAC play over the week­end, as they open the con­fer­ence sched­ule at home with a tilt against Lake Superior State on March 20 and close out the week­end home stand with a con­test against Michigan Tech on March 21.

With the team head­ing into con­fer­ence matchups, Bulldog head coach Alex Palladino believes his team will get back on track against GLIAC competition.

“I think we’ll fare pretty well in our upcom­ing con­fer­ence matchups, in spite of our spring break results,” said Palladino. “We’ll have a bet­ter show­ing in our dou­bles play against the teams in our con­fer­ence.” n