The Eastern men’s tennis team hosted an invitational over the weekend, its first home matches of the season. They started play on Friday and ended on Sunday.

The team played against Division-I school Chicago State University, who showed up with five total players. Eastern also faced Division-II schools McKendree University and University of Missouri-Saint Louis.

Eastern had played Chicago State earlier this year at the Valparaiso Invitational but came into the matchups with McKendree and UMSL with no prior knowledge.

Head coach Sam Kercheval addressed this before the weekend started, and he said that his team would have to adjust on the fly.

Most matches Eastern played in had close finishes.

After the Valparaiso invitational, Kercheval and junior Jared Woodson both said the team needed to work on conditioning, and Kercheval responded by giving his team more conditioning to do.

Matches were played on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, though the matches were initially planned to be done on Saturday.

Rain caused the Saturday matches to be delayed, and they were finished Sunday morning and afternoon.

Though this is a young Eastern team with nine players, they have already shown signs of promise and improvement.

The next Eastern match is on Saturday, Oct. 15, when they have an EIU Alumni Weekend.

Dillan Schorfheide can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected].