In its regular season finale, the Central College women’s tennis team suffered a narrow 5-4 defeat against Truman State University Wednesday afternoon.

The Dutch (9-11) had an easy 8-1 win at No. 3 doubles from Madi Whalen and Jennifer Larson to get the night started. Central played a pair of close matches at the top of the doubles lineup but lost both and trailed 2-1 going into singles. Whalen won at No. 2 by retirement to knot the match at 2-2 with five singles matches left to play. Becca Vala and Lauren Gano continued their torrid springs with singles wins, but the Dutch fell just shy of securing the victory against their NCAA Division II opponent. Vala won 6-4, 6-0 at No. 4 and Gano won 6-0, 6-2 at No. 6. Gano has won eight of her last 10 singles matches while Vala has won seven of her last 10.

Qualifying for the American Rivers Conference tournament as the No. 5 seed, Central plays in the opening round match at No. 4 Wartburg College on Tuesday at 4 pm.