The Xavier men’s tennis team continued its opening weekend of the season on Saturday with a 4-3 win over Southern Illinois University at the Greg Adams Tennis Center. With the win, XU moves to 2-0, while the Salukis drop to 1-1 on the season.

Xavier took the early advantage in the match by picking up wins in two of the three doubles matches to earn the crucial doubles point. Freshman Doug Matthews and senior Rob Simpson recorded a convincing 8-0 win over SIU’s Rodrigo Lama and Tomas Gonzalez at No. 1. At No. 3, freshman Ra’ees Ismail and senior Rustin Reys defeated Andrei Bubnov and Bojan Ilievski, 8-6.

Xavier and SIU went on to split the six singles matches, with the Musketeers recording wins at the third, fourth and fifth positions. Matthews recorded his second win in as many days with a 6-3, 7-5 win over Sergio Sanchez at No. 3. At No. 4, Ismail picked up a straight-set defeat of Bubnov, 6-0, 6-4. Simpson recorded the third singles win of the match for Xavier at No. 5 where the senior captain picked up a 6-1, 6-3 win over Gonzalez.

The Xavier swim teams could not hold off powerful Denison and fell at the M.O. Gregory Natatorium. The XU men were defeated by a score of 116-88, while the XU women fell 119-80.

Junior Krystel Kooyman led both teams on the afternoon with two first place finishes and helped Xavier’s 400 medley relay team to a second place finish. Kooyman won the 100 free and 200 breast events in times of 55.09 and 2:25.70, respectively.

On the men’s side, senior Dave Janszen continued to impress with a first place finish in the 200 IM (1:55.59) followed by a second place finish in the 200 back (1:57.26). Janszen also led off the men’s 400 medley relay and helped the team of seniors Dan Milheim and Kyle Hawley, and sophomore Tyler Borg to a second place finish in a time of 3:35.53.

Freshman Becky Clark and junior Kelly Sraj each turned in a top five finish on Friday as the Xavier women’s track team recorded a fifth place finish at the BGSU Invitational. The Musketeers totaled 25 points while competing in just seven of the 16 events.