CLAREMONT, Calif. - In a battle of top-25 Division III men's tennis teams Wednesday morning the ninth-ranked Polar Bears of Bowdoin (Maine) College were able to down No. 18 Whitman College, 8-1, on the neutral-site courts of the Biszantz Family Tennis Center at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges.

The non-conference match between the Missionaries (8-4) and Polar Bears (2-0) kicked off Whitman's spring break trip into Southern California where it will play a quartet of teams ranked 21st or higher in the most recent Intercollegiate Tennis Association men's D-III rankings.

Wednesday's final score wasn't indicative of how close many of the on-court battles were during both singles and doubles action.

Though swept in the doubles the Missionaries' No. 1 tandem of Zach Hewlin and Phillip Locklear and the No. 2 pairing of Jake Hoeger and Petar Jivkov each were felled by one service break, succumbing 8-6 to their Bowdoin counterparts.

At 2-singles Locklear rallied from a set-one loss to take the second, 6-4, from Luke Trinka, forcing a third-set super-tiebreaker. As with Locklear's and Trinka's opposing sides match at 1-doubles the singles tiebreaker ended up hinging on a service break with Trinka eking out a 10-8 win for the match victory. The three-setter was Locklear's fifth in his past six outings.

At Nos. 3 and 5 singles Whitman broke in front with first set wins, Chase Friedman at 3 and Robert Carter at 5, but Bowdoin scratched out consecutive wins in the second and third sets in both matches to again escape with points.

Whitman's point in the match came at 6-singles where Adam Rapoport won by default.

Next up for the Whitties is a Thursday afternoon match against host and second-ranked Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on their home courts at the Family Tennis Center.