It took a while—five straight losses to be exact—but the NIU men’s tennis team finally ended the drought on Sunday.

The 2-5 Huskie netters hadn’t tasted victory in over two weeks, so in came Eastern Michigan and out went NIU’s frustrations.

The end result was an explosive 8-1 victory posted by the Huskies at NIU’s Recreation Center.

The Huskies won all six of the singles matches in convincing fashion.

Dustin Dobrin, at the No. 2 seed, handed Sand Ashraf a 6-2, 6-1 defeat, which pleased head coach Chuck Merzbacher.

“Dustin is playing really hot right now,” Merzbacher said.

Among the other singles matches, only newly inserted freshman David Edelman lost a set.

Down one set to none, Edelman pulled out a nailbiter, winning the last two sets 6-1 and 7-5.

Merzbacher had only good things to say about his team’s performance during the meet.

“We needed everyone to win, so it was nice to have a 6-0 (victory) in singles. The team needed this win to head into the Iowa tournament with confidence,” Merzbacher said.

However, the weekend wasn’t all smiles for the team.

Saturday’s confrontation with the Midwest region’s fifth-ranked team—the University of Wisconsin—showed the Huskies they still have some rungs to climb on the experience ladder before they can beat some of the veteran teams in the area.

There were some shining moments in the team’s 8-1 loss to the Badgers, but the highlight was Dobrin’s second singles triumph of the weekend.

Dobrin scored a 7-5, 6-0 victory over Dan Nabedrick to nix any shutout hopes that the Badgers were entertaining.

The Huskies now turn their attention to preparation for this weekend’s action in Iowa City.

On Saturday, the University of Iowa State Cyclones square off with NIU and on Sunday, the Big Ten’s University of Iowa hosts the Huskies on the same courts.