CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. - The Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology men's tennis team split a pair of matches Saturday, Feb. 28, defeating Monmouth College 5-4 and falling to Wabash College 7-2. 

In the match with Monmouth, Rose-Hulman won all three doubles flights. Sophomore Brandon Benedict and freshman Cam Metzger defeated Derek Rineberg and Marco Franklin 8-4 at first doubles while junior Matt Conrad and freshman Derek Benedict downed Landon Walker and Saxon Day 8-5 at second doubles. Sophomore Joe Kendall and freshman Tyler Haas rounded out the doubles sweep with an 8-4 win over Dylan Won and Paulo Pliego at third doubles.

Brandon Benedict and Metzger clinched the match for the Engineers winning first and second single respectively. Brandon defeated Walker 6-1, 7-5 while Cam knocked off Day 6-2, 6-4.

Monmouth won third, fifth, and sixth singles in straight flights. The only fight to go to third sets was fourth singles. Franco took set one over Derek Benedict 6-3, but Benedict battled back to win set two 6-1. The two played a super tiebreaker to decide the third set, which Franco took 10-8.

In the match with Wabash, Derek Benedict and Tyler Haas picked up the Engineers' lone match point winning third singles 8-5 over Graham McMullen and Mazin Hakim.

The singles flights starting off promising with Brandon Benedict (first), Cam Metzger (third), and Derek Benedict (fifth) all winning the first set in their respective flights. Unfortunately, the Little Giants battled back to win each flight in three sets.

Tyler Haas was the long Engineer to win a singles match. The freshman won his sixth singles flight6-3, 0-6, 1-0(10-8).

Rose-Hulman now stands at 2-2 on the season and opens Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) play at Franklin on March 14. The match is slated to begin at noon.