Northwestern defeated in regular season final match by Clover

We traveled to Clover today to play in a match that decided the final region standings. With a win, we could have forced a three-way tie for second place. However, we were defeated in a match with a lot of close results at the individual line. Their coach even agreed that we were a better team than we were earlier in the year even though the overall score reflects a 0-7 loss as all the matches played closer than he remembered.

With the loss we finished in fourth place, regardless of the Rock Hill outcome against Fort Mill tonight. The region champion is Fort Mill (assuming win 14-0), followed by second place Clover (11-3), then Rock Hill (assuming loss 10-4), and then us (9-5).

Thankfully, I discussed the playoff dates with the Clover coach as I assumed that our first match would be played on Thursday May 1 as per the information I received from the SCHSL at the initial coaches meeting (see below top link). However, we will actually play on Tuesday April 29 against the #1 seed out of Region II at their courts. I am predicting this to be against Spartanburg High School as they have been in the #3 spot in the state rankings all year and have not moved down (usually you move down with a loss, especially in region).

http://www.schsl.org/2007/2007-08%20Rules%20Section.pdf - see page 31 playoff dates

http://www.schsl.org/2007/2007-2008%20AAAA%20handbook.pdf - see page 58 playoff dates, these are the rules we are going by for playoffs

I advised the boys on the busride home that we will need to get them out of class on Tuesday around 2:45 so that we can change and hit the road by 3:15 at the latest to get to Spartanburg. If we are successful in an upset of Spartanburg, our next match would be Thursday and on the road again as we are the lower seed in our bracket. I assume that any remaining matches would be played on the road, so we need to get in Road Warrior mindsets over the weekend.

Go Trojans!

Box Score:

1S: Chase Altieri (C) def Jeff Zimmerman 7-6, 2-6, 10-6
2S: Nick Deahl (C) def Seth Russell 7-5, 6-1
3S: Ken Long (C) def Zach Beaver 6-2, 6-2
4S: Will Decker (C) def Alex Atzberger 6-0, 6-2
5S: Tucker DeLoach (C) def Drayton Wade 6-3, 2-6, 10-8

1D: Altieri/Deahl (C) def Russell/Atzberger 8-6
2D: Josh Watts/JC Dougherty (C) def Brian Fitzpatrick/Paul Sabisch 7-6, 6-4