I was very proud to watch us play strong tonight and defeat South Pointe 6-1 to push us to 2-0 in region play. I could tell on the busride over that we seemed to have focus and that was evident in the first few matches off.
Jeff Zimmermanserved strong again and hit some great lines to score our first win 6-0, 6-2. Seth Russell was impressive at line 2 as well defeating his opponent 6-0, 6-1. Our 2 doubles team of Eric Sabin & Brian Fitzpatrick finished up next with a double bagel win 6-0, 6-0.
The remaining matches were close and I am glad that we pulled away in two of the three. Alex Atzberger had some difficulties in the beginning, but ended up cruising to a 6-3, 6-2 win at line 3. Zach Beaver played an aggressive opponent at line 4 that made every chance to charge the net against Zach. Zach took advantage of lobbing and continued to send the opponent back to the baseline. With Zach's speed & endurance and the well thought out lobs, he also secured a 6-3, 6-2 win at line 4.
The heartbreaker of the night was line 5. Drayton pulled out a nail-biter first set 7-5 before dropping the second set 6-4. In the 10 point tiebreak, he fell behind early 1-5 and eventually faced match point at 9-6. Drayton fought off three straight match points, 2 while serving and 1 on the return, to knot it up at 9 all. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be as the tie-breaker set went to South Pointe 12-10.
The match being decided, I re-paired the 1 doubles line and cut Jeff loose to attend his Clemson acceptance dinner. Seth & Alex performed well together as a doubles team and captured the line 8-2. Most of all, I liked that points were being won with volleys & overheads by us instead of solely relying on baseline groundstrokes and opponent unforced errors. I keep preaching that doubles matches are won by the team that gets to the net first and I think it may be sinking in a little.
All in all there was a lot be proud of. We are off to a good start in region play at 2-0 & are now above .500 for the first time this season at 3-2. Doubles continues to be a strength for us at both lines as we are now 9-1 overall for the year at our doubles lines. We'll continue to practice hard tomorrow, Saturday (optional) and Monday to prepare ourselves for next Tuesday's home match against Nation Ford and road contest at York High.
Go Trojans!
Box Score:
1S: Zimmerman (N) def Cooke (S) 6-0, 6-2
2S: Russell (N) def Carter (S) 6-0, 6-1
3S: Atzberger (N) def Jolly (S) 6-3, 6-2
4S: Z Beaver (N) def Williamson (S) 6-3, 6-2
5S: Sanford (S) def Wade (N) 5-7, 6-4, 12-10
1D: Russell/Atzberger (N) def Cooke/Carter (S) 8-2
2D: Sabin/Fitzpatrick (N) def Clamp/Nguyen (S) 6-0, 6-0
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