The Missouri tennis team edged out Minnesota 4-3 Friday night at the Green Tennis Center in Columbia.

The win puts the team at 8-3 overall and closes out the non-conference portion of its schedule.

“It was a tough one today,” coach Steven Stuckenschneider said. “Some of our girls looked really good, and a couple of our girls looked a little bit flat. Very tough win today.”

Senior captains Mallory Weber and Kaitlyn Ritchie continued their dominance in doubles Friday, beginning their match with a 7-1 lead and ending with an 8-4 victory.

“Kaitlyn and I started off really well and built a big lead,” Weber said. “We were able to close it out, so we’re just really happy that we played well today.”

Despite the 8-4 win from the seniors, the Tigers lost doubles to begin the evening. Freshman Rachel Stuhlmann and sophomore Maria Christensen lost their match 8-4, and junior Jamie Mera and freshman Marlen Hacke lost their match 8-6.

“We’re not particularly a strong doubles team yet,” Stuckenschneider said. “Doubles is all about being aggressive. You need to get to the net and kind of got to try and win the points quick. We’ll spend a lot of time working on that moving forward.”

What the Tigers lacked in doubles they made up for in singles, winning four out of their six matches to win the game.

Weber won her match in the number two slot, winning 6-2 and 6-1, and Stuhlmann clinched the win for the Tigers with a 6-3, 6-2 win.

“It feels really good (to clinch the win),” Stuhlmann said. “I fought really hard. Obviously the team was playing really well, and I knew it was going to come down to my match. It’s good knowing that the team worked just as hard as I did.”

Other performances in singles were wins from Hacke (6-0, 6-3) and Christensen (6-4, 6-3) and losses from Ritchie (6-4, 6-1, 6-3) and Mera (6-0, 6-4).

With the cancellation of Saturday’s match against Drake, the Tigers are now heading into conference play.

The non-conference portion of the season has seen first time wins over Louisville, Iowa and Minnesota, and the Tigers are using that as a confidence booster.

“We’ve had a lot of good non-conference matches here,” Weber said. “We’ve played a lot of quality teams, and we’ve beaten a lot of quality teams, so I think we’re ready to tackle the Big 12.”

The Tigers begin conference play March 18 at Texas, which is ranked No. 24 in the country.

“I definitely think we are going to do amazing against the conference players,” Christensen said. “We’ve already won more matches than we did last semester. We’re feeling so comfortable with what we’re doing right now.”

The Tigers next home match is March 25 against Iowa State.