KEARNEY, Neb.— Colorado Mesa University freshman Romain Payan won a hard-fought No. 3 singles match although the Mavericks were overpowered by Rockhurst University, 4-1 in a neutral-site interregional men's tennis match-up on Saturday here at the Ernest Grundy Tennis Center.
 
The Hawks, who improved to 2-2, had a pair of nationally-ranked players at the top of their lineup and another regionally-ranked player at No. 4.  All three claimed victories as the Hawks were also able to sweep all three doubles matches by 6-3, 6-4 and 6-4 margins to claim the team win.
 
CMU fell to 6-5 with Saturday's defeat.
 
Payan was able to win an 8-6 tie-breaker in the first set and then won the second set, 6-4 to defeat Josef Truhlar.
 
That win came after national No. 21 Louis Keiner won for the Hawks at No. 2 singles over CMU's William Leschig.
 
No. 10 Semyon Tsyrenov was then pressed by the Mavs' Henry Scheck in the top flight, but escaped with a 6-4, 6-3 win to give the Hawks a 3-0 team lead.
 
Payan's win kept the dual going before Creed Skinner, ranked 20^th in the ITA's Central Regional rankings, then completed the victory with a 6-3, 3-6, 1-0 (10-4) win over the Mavs' Philemon Jabin at No. 4.
 
Tsyrenov and Keiner are ranked first and third in the Central Region, respectively.
 
Two other singles matches were left unfinished.
 
Emil Hultman lost the first set of his No. 5 singles match, 6-4 but was leading the second 5-3 against the Hawks' Alex Tikhonov.
 
Meanwhile, the Mavs' Diogo Manzano had won the first set in a tie-breaker over Diego Schtulmann at No. 6 singles.
 
The Maverick men will be off next weekend and will host the Hawai'i Hilo Vulcans in a Sunday, Mar. 9 doubleheader.  Those matches will be CMU's first home matches of the season and will also be their first against a fellow Pacific West Conference foe.