The Middlebury men's tennis team started its spring break trip through southern California on the right foot with an 8-1 victory over Division II Concordia (Calif.) at the Costa Mesa Tennis Center. The third-ranked Panthers improve to 4-0 and return to the courts on Sunday against Lewis & Clark at 2:00 p.m. in a match to be played at Whittier.

The Panthers took all three doubles points against the Eagles. The tandem of Ari Smolyar and Noah Farrell picked up the first point with an 8-1 victory in the top spot over Till Guttenberger and Daniel Reddmann. Palmer Campbell and Hamid Derbani posted an 8-5 win at #2 against Santiago Sanchez and Man Hon Ko, while the duo of Timo van der Geest and William de Quant needed extra play to defeat Filip Burnac and Harsha Manjunath in the third slot, 9-8.

During singles action, van der Geest picked up the Panthers' fourth point with a 6-2, 6-0 score at #6 against Manjunath. Campbell earned the match-clinching team point via a 6-3, 6-3 win in the third spot over Ko.

The four remaining matches all needed a super tiebreaker in the third set to be decided. At #4, de Quant was victorious against Sanchez (6-1, 3-6, 10-3), while Derbani won in the fifth slot (7-6, 1-6, 10-5) over Reddmann.

The Eagles recorded their lone point of the match at #2 when Burnac fought back from a set down against Smolyar for a hard-fought 3-6, 6-4, 14-12 win. Farrell completed the scoring for the Panthers with a 6-1, 2-6, 7-5 win at #1 against Guttenbeger.