DURHAM, N.C. — Freshman Thanos Spyropoulos picked up singles and doubles wins for host North Carolina Central University in a 5-2 non-conference men's tennis loss to UC Riverside on Wednesday afternoon at the NCCU Tennis Courts.
 
The Highlanders outlasted the Eagles to take the series edge as the cross-continental opponents meet for a third straight season. UC Riverside (15-10) was playing its fifth match in three days and are 4-1 on its east coast trip so far. The Highlanders have knocked off the Eagles each of the last two years. NCCU (3-9) won the first meeting in 2017.
 
The victors squeaked out the important first point of the day with a tiebreaker win to finish off doubles.
 
The middle tandem of senior Kyle McCann and freshman Andreas Whelan-Merediz started the day with a 6-1 win in favor of the visitors. NCCU leveled doubles at 1-all as the No. 3 freshmen duo of Christos Dagklis and Spyropoulos secured a 7-5 win.
 
Seniors Gabriel Cucalon and Sebastian Bromley were leading 6-5 in the decisive doubles battle for the Eagles, but Senior Anderson Ju and sophomore Vignesh Subramanyan rallied to force a tiebreaker for UC Riverside. Ju/Subramanyan then survived the tiebreaker 7-5 to take the clinching battle 7-6.
 
A pair of juniors pulled UCR to within one point of the match victory. Gilbert Chung doubled UCR's advantage to 2-nil with a 6-2, 6-1 victory on court three while Nabil Abdallah's 6-3, 6-3 win on court two had the Highlanders up 3-1.  
 
Cucalon put the Eagles on the board in between those UCR wins with his eighth straight victory. Cucalon (8-3) knocked off McCann in the top draw in straight set scores of 6-1, 6-3.
 
Spyropoulos used matching set score wins of 6-2 in the fourth position of NCCU's lineup to close the team deficit to 3-2. Spyropoulos (4-7) was the only player to win both singles and doubles for the maroon and gray.
 
Whelan-Merediz clinched the team victory with a 6-2, 6-1 win at No. 5 singles. Ju rallied to take the last match of the day at No. 6 singles by tally of 2-6, 6-1, 10-8.
 
NC Central will next visit archrival North Carolina A&T State University in a MEAC Southern Division showdown on Saturday at 1 p.m.