KEARNEY, Neb.— No. 1 singles player Philemon Jabin saved a match point in the tiebreaker while coming from behind to win the dual-clinching match as the Colorado Mesa University Mavericks squeaked out an intense 4-2 neutral-court win over William Jewell College on Thursday night here in the Ernest Grundy Tennis Center.
 
The Mavericks have now won their last two duals to improve to 2-1 this spring and 2-2 overall while William Jewell fell to 4-2 overall.
 
The Cardinals won two of the three doubles matches to seize the early lead before the Mavs rattled off three comfortable wins in the lower half of the singles lineup to take a 3-1 overall lead in the dual.
 
Meanwhile, the Cardinals seized a team point at No. 3 singles and were on the verge of knotting the dual at 3 apiece while also having won the opening set at No. 2 singles, which was left unfinished as the dual was played to clinch.
 
However, Jabin, a junior out of Belgium via Ventura (Calif.) College claimed easily his most important win of his brief Maverick career over regionally-ranked Ugnius Bickauskis in the top singles flight by a 12-10 margin in the tie-breaker.  Bickauskis, ranked 11^th in the ITA Midwest Regional Rankings following the fall season, had won the first set over Jabin, 6-2.  However, Jabin knotted the match with a 6-2 win in the second set to force a 10-point match tie-breaker.
 
Bickauskis then took a 9-8 lead in that breaker before Jabin registered a service ace to fight off the match point.  Jabin then earned a match point of his own by chasing a drop volley down at 10-10.  Bickauskis then hit a pass attempt into the net after Jabin ran in for a short ball, handing the match to Jabin and the dual to the Mavericks.
 
If Bickauskis would have pulled the No. 1 singles match, the dual would have come down to the No. 2 singles match on the adjacent court between CMU's William Leschig and WJ's Julien Lafranchise, who had taken the first set 7-5 over the Maverick sophomore.  The second set was level at 5-all when it was left unfinished thanks to Jabin's victory.
 
Earlier, the Mavericks dominated the 4, 5 and 6 singles matches, winning each in straight sets.  Emil Hultman delivered the first blow with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Caden Lingenfelser at No. 5 singles before Henry Scheck blew fast Gage Foltz by a 6-2, 6-1 margin in the fourth flight.
 
Jorge Abreu was also a 6-4, 6-0 winner over Ian Lewis on Court 6.
 
The Cardinals' lone singles point came from Max Quennery, who bested Diogo Manzano, 6-3, 6-2 in the No. 3 singles match.
 
Jabin and Hultman were also victorious in doubles as they defeated Quennery and Lingenfelser, 6-2 on Court 2.  However, the Cardinals roared back to seize the doubles point with victories on Courts 1 and 3.
 
The Mavericks will play three more matches here over the weekend.  They will take on host Nebraska-Kearney at Rockhurst on Friday before squaring off with National No. 20 Northwest Missouri State on Saturday.