ST. LOUIS – The University of Missouri-St. Louis men's tennis team clinched a spot in the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament with a 4-3 win over McKendree on Saturday at the St. Clair Tennis Club in O'Fallon, Ill. The Tritons improve to 10-7, 3-1 GLVC while the Bearcats drop to 6-14, 1-2 GLVC.

UMSL won the first point of the dual match winning two of the three doubles matches. It's number one team of Tanin Ramnath and Percy Siercke defeated Bendix Schroeder and Luka Kalenic 6-3 while the number two team of Alejandro Ley and Daniel Berdecio knocked off Stepan Mach and Mathijs Aalpol 7-5. The final doubles match went unfinished.

Siercke gave the Tritons a 2-0 lead defeating Kalenic 6-1, 6-4 in the number three singles contest. McKendree got wins at number one and two singles to even the dual at 2-2. UMSL retook the lead as Berdecio rallied from a 1-0 deficit to defeat Felix Diedrichs 3-6, 7-5, 7-5 at number four singles.

The Bearcats tied it again as Giacomo Valerga beat Jose Yañez in straight sets 6-3, 7-5. The match came down to number five singles between Henry Roberts and Aimar Oregui. Oregui rallied from an early deficit to win the opening set in a tiebreak 7-6 (7-5) but Roberts won the second set 7-6 (7-4) to force the winner take all third set. Roberts led 5-1 but Oregui won the next three games to draw within 5-4. Roberts held off the comeback winning game 10 to win the set 6-4 and clinch the victory for UMSL.

The Tritons wrap up the regular season next Saturday against crosstown rival Maryville at 11 a.m.