The 4th ranked Barton Community College men's tennis team stepped out of conference play Wednesday coming up short 5-2 in a trip to NCAA Division II University of Nebraska-Kearney.

Playing without its No. 2 player and moving the rest up a slot in the lineup, the Cougars dropped each of the three doubles matches, winning two of the singles battles but came up shy on a pair of super tiebreakers contributing to the overall loss.

Getting a little extra court time prior to the post-season push, the now 11-2 Cougars continue preparation for the Region VI Championships held April 26-27 in Arkansas City.

Barton's pair of singles victories came in the No. 1 and No. 3 slots on straight set wins, Victor Alves winning the top matchup with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over Aaron Osmond while Shane Tapera's move up to the third position produced a hard earned 6-4, 7-5 win over Tom Van den Dugen.

Both matches in the super tiebreak went to the side of the home Lopers, 39th ranked Fernando Andre winning the first set in a tie break before UNK's Jip Mens took the next two 6-4 and 10-7 to win the No. 2 slot battle. In the No. 5 spot of the lineup, again the Cougars had a set lead behind Oliver Naude's 7-5 win but the Lopers' Alex Jaulin fought back taking the second set 6-4 before prevailing 10-6 in the breaker.

In other singles matches, Mateo Prado dropped a 6-4, 6-2 decision to Jakub Strzelecki in the No. 4 with Hayden Loffler being inserted into the No. 6 spot coming up short 6-3, 6-4 to Ahmed Abdelaziz.

Doubles play put the Cougars facing an uphill battle headed into singles, the normal No. 1 and No. 3 tandems of Alves/Andre and Naude/Loffler losing 6-3 and 6-0 to Osmond/Dungen and Mens/Abdelaziz respectively while the pieced together No. 2 duo of Tapera and Prado battling to just a 6-4 loss.