KTUL.com - Tulsa's Channel 8 - News, Weather & SportsTU Tennis' Dream Season Ends In Sweet 16

The University of Tulsa men's tennis team ended its season with a 4-0 loss to fourth-ranked Ohio State Thursday evening in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Championships in Stanford, California.

Blaz Rola and Balas Novak won the first doubles match, 8-3 over TU's Grant Ive and Tristan Jackson, but Tulsa bounced back with Ashley Watling and Clifford Marsland earning an 8-6 victory over Matt Allare and Peter Kobelt.

But, the Buckeyes won the doubles point when Chase Buchanan and Shuhei Uzawa took an 8-5 victory over Marcelo Arevalo and Japie De Klerk.

Ohio State then took victories in No. 2, No. 4 and No. 6 singles to close out the victory.

TU was leading two of the other three matches that went unfinished.

Despite the loss, TU head coach Vince Westbrook was pleased with his team's performance this season.

"We set a goal in the beginning of the season that we wanted to reach the Round of 16, and we were able to achieve that goal this year," Westbrook said. "I'm very proud of how we battled today, but we just didn't have enough against a very good Ohio State team. We return the core of our team next year, and I expect us to be able to build on this season."

The season ends at 21-and-8 for the Golden Hurricane.

It's not the end for Watling and Marsland. The duo earned the Conference USA automatic bid into the NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Doubles Championship, which will begin May 26th.