SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - In its final tuneup before the AMC/Heart/SAC NAIA Championship Qualifier, #11(NAIA)/#9(ITA) William Woods (15-5) took on its third straight NCAA Division II opponent. The Owls picked up wins at the three doubles and five and six singles but dropped the overall match 4-2 to #20(ITA) Drury University.

After falling 6-1 at the two doubles, Woods tied things up with a 6-2 win by Andres De Los Rios Kolejewska and Felix Diedrichs over Alejandro Esquivel and Jaroslav Sharyy.

With the doubles point on the line, Ben Grumley and Zinovii Nahirniak were locked in a pitched battle against Drury's number one pairing of Sylvain Garin-Michaud and Jesus Gonzalez. Grumley and Nahirniak snagged a break point to take a 2-1 lead in the set, but the Panthers answered with a break of their own to tie the set at 2-2. Both sides held serve the rest of the way to force a tiebreak, but Drury managed the final service break to clinch the doubles point 7-6(8).

Vitek Subert came up big for the Owls at the five line with the only straight-sets win for either team in singles action. The senior polished off a 6-3, 6-3 win over Lukas Rieber to tie the match at 1-1, needing just 74 minutes to earn the win.

After splitting the first two sets, De Los Rios Kolejewska earned a third-set tiebreak win over Mark Drozdetskii, but the 6-2, 5-7, 1-0 win came as Drury clinched the match with wins at the two and three lines.

Next up for the Owls is the 2024 AMC/Heart/SAC NAIA Championship Qualifier, hosted by Missouri Baptist University. Play begins on Wednesday, April 24, with WWU likely to claim the no. 1 seed and a bye to the semifinals. The seedings and schedule will be announced next week.