PORTLAND, Ore.  Battling a home team that was the last Northwest Conference squad to defeat them, Whitman's 11th-ranked men's tennis team clawed and scratched and battled host Lewis & Clark College to take a 5-4 victory over the Pioneers in the LC Tennis Dome Friday evening.

The victory lifts the Blues' conference mark to 4-0 and their overall record to 6-2, while L&C drops its first NWC match to fall to 3-1 and slip to 5-3 overall.

A more than nine-year conference win streak by Whitman was halted by the Pios in Portland on April 2, 2016.

And the hosts began the match Friday with another upset on their mind as they finished out the doubles matches with a 2-1 lead.

Zach Hewlin and Robert Carter earned an 8-5 win in the No. 1 slot, but the Pioneers pulled even with a win at 3-doubles and then inched ahead with a victory at No. 2.

Hewlin shouldered the burden of squaring the match, finishing his bout at No. 1 singles against Raed Attia, 6-2 and 6-2, in the first singles match to finish. But L&C again bounced back.

Brendan Barrows rallied from an opening-set loss to Robert Carter at 4-singles, taking the second and third sets for another Pios lead (3-2).

Ben Kirsh looked solid in his opening-set win at 2-singles over L&C's Jackson Powell but needed a third set to finish off Powell (6-3, 4-6, 6-1) -- tying the match for the third time, at 3-3.

Finishing nearly simultaneously, the Nos. 3 and 5 singles results left but another tie, at 4-4.

Gordon Barrows escaped a rally by Whitman's Gary Ho -- who fought off six match points -- at No. 3 to earn a 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(4) victory, only to have Daniel Foster close out a 6-1, 6-4 win for Whitman at No. 5 over Kei Inoue.

That left the deciding point on the courts at 6-singles, a pressure-packed battle between Chase Friedman and L&C's Pim Trouerback.

Trailing 4-2 in the opening set, Friedman ran off three straight to jump in front 5-4 before rolling on to a 7-5 first-set win.

Trouerback opened the second set with a service break but that would be his only highlight of the second set.

Friedman fought off the building pressure -- as well as every set of eyes in the dome -- and dished out a break, a hold, another break and another hold to leap ahead 4-1 in what would eventually become a 6-3 match-clinching victory -- for both the senior and the Blues.

Friday's match pitted the top two teams in the preseason NWC coaches' poll -- Whitman in first and the Pios in second -- against each other in their only regular season match of the season. But the two may have a destiny to face off again in the NWC postseason tournament.

The Blues continue their weekend away from home with another league match Saturday. Whitman will head to Newberg, Oregon, for a 1 p.m. bout with host George Fox University.