The No. 40 Oregon Ducks (9-4) concluded their weekend road trip falling 2-4 in Sunday’s match against the No. 42 Iowa Hawkeyes (7-5).
Oregon’s loss to Iowa is its second straight loss going into the conference play starting next week.
The Sunday morning match in Iowa City, Iowa, began with a tight battle between the Ducks and the Hawkeyes for the doubles point.
After Oregon’s Armando Soemarno and Charles Roberts won the first doubles match, 6-4, in the No.1 spot, Cormac Clissold and Thomas Laurent fell, 5-7, in the No. 2 spot which meant the doubles point came down to Stevens and Gentry’s tiebreaker set in spot No. 3.
Iowa’s duo of Jake Jacoby and Joe Tyler took the set 7- 6(8) and the Ducks entered singles play trailing the Hawkeyes 0-1.
Singles play proved to be just as tough as a battle for the Ducks. The opening sets split with each team recording three victories.
Iowa went on to take the victories in the No. 3 and 4 spots, while Laurent earned Oregon’s first point of the match, defeating Josh Silverstein of Iowa, 6-1, 6-2, in the No. 1 spot.
In singles spot No. 5, Gentry was the only other Duck to defeat a Hawkeye. His win against Jonas Larsen, 6-4, 6-4, got Oregon within one of Iowa, 2-3, and marked his 11th straight singles win, improving to 16-2 for the year.
Iowa clinched the match victory after defeating Riki Oshima, 6-3, 7-5 in the No. 6 singles spot.
Akihiro Tanaka’s single match against Kareem Allaf was left unfinished and both Stevens and Clissold lost their matches against the Hawkeyes in 6-1, 6-3 and 6-3, 6-1 respectively.
Oregon will begin Pac-12 play March 9, at 5 p.m. against UCLA in Eugene.
Follow Maggie Vanoni on Twitter @maggie_vanoni