WICHITA – The Shockers' comeback fell short as No. 74 Drake squeaked out a 4-3 win Saturday at Genesis Health Clubs.
 
After a dominant 6-2 win at No. 2 doubles by Orel Ovil and Misha Kvantaliani (7-3), the Bulldogs (9-9) evened the doubles score with a 6-4 win at court three over Alejandro Jacome and Duccio Petreni in their second match together.
 
With the No. 61-ranked Drake team of Oliver Johansson and Matija Matic up 5-4 at No. 1, Alex Richards and Luke Bracks kept the match alive, tying it at 5-all. The Bulldogs gave themselves another chance to wrap it up, going up 6-5, but the Shockers wouldn't go down easy, sending the match to a tiebreaker. Johansson and Matic ultimately came out on top in the tiebreaker (7-2) to clinch the doubles point for Drake.
 
Down 1-0, the Shockers (9-9) needed four singles wins to win the match but the Bulldogs got off to a hot start with four first-set wins. Kvantaliani and Jacome were the lone Shockers to win their first sets, as Kvantaliani made an incredible comeback from down 4-1, winning five-straight games to shut down Drake's No. 92-ranked singles player, Jeremy Schifris, 6-4.
 
Drake's Reid Jarvis claimed the first singles point with a 6-3, 6-0 win at No. 5, giving the Bulldogs a 2-0 advantage, but Ovil redeemed his first set loss (3-6) with a successful second set (6-3) and shut out his opponent in the third to put the Shockers on the board.
 
At court one, Kvantaliani went up 5-4 in the second set after being down 4-2, but Schifris tied it back up at 5 apiece before comitting his second unsportsmanlike conduct violation resulting in a game penalty to give Kvantaliani the 6-5 advantage. Kvantaliani won the next game to earn his first win over a ranked opponent and second win at court one to tie the match at 2-2.
 
After dropping his first set at court four, Richards battled back in the second but came up just short in the tiebreaker, falling 6-2, 7-6 (5) to Johansson, but Jacome finished simultaneously as court three with a 6-4, 6-4 win to keep the match tied. Jacome leads the team with 11 singles victories and is on a three-match winning streak.
 
With the match all square at 3-3, the burden to clinch fell on court six. Petreni had evened his match with a win in the second set and carried the momentum to go up 4-1 in the third, but Drake's Markus Bolin would not go away easy and won the next five games to clinch the match for the Bulldogs.
 
The heartbreaker was the Shockers' third 4-3 loss of the season as they have yet to take down a ranked opponent.
 
Wichita State prepares for a five-match road stretch, starting Friday, Mar. 24 against UCF in Orlando, Fla.