Trojans Get Back in Win Column

York brought a great group of kids over tonight to battle us in a region match up. Overall, we played really well from top to bottom both varsity and reserves. The 6 to 0 win tonight pushes our record back to .500 at 4-4 and we are sitting alone in 4th place in the region at 2-3. The Fort Mill match Thursday will be a big opportunity for us to try to climb into a tie with them for 3rd place as I am sure they are 3-2 right now after playing at Gaffney tonight.

Maggie Orr gave us our first line win tonight at 2 singles. She nearly posted a straight shutout as she finished off Neely from York in about 40 minutes by score of 6-0, 6-1.

Chandler Green provided the second win tonight at 1 singles. 8th grader Goss of York will be quite a good player in the future, but Chandler never let her get into a rhythm and took the match by score of 6-2, 6-0.

Our third win came off Courtney Cox's racket at 4 singles. She played a familiar foe, Whitesides from York, whom she had played last year in doubles. Courtney served really strong tonight and limited her errors in the end to finish out really strong 6-3, 6-1...I believe that I called that Mrs. Cox!

Our victory was sealed when our decisive 4th line win was secured by our doubles team of Emily Edwards & Hillary Tindall. I mixed up our doubles this week to get Emily playing a more aggressive style and Hillary seemed the right partner for her. I was right for today as the girls started strong and held off a late charge from Webb & Rogers of York to seal our victory with a 6-1, 6-3 win.

Lauren Cox played 5 for us tonight in our new lineup. This was Lauren's first varsity singles match of her young career and she made us all proud., Her opponent, Shirley, could hit hard through the ball and mix up some different shots. Lauren overcame some early nerves to hold strong in the end for a 6-4, 6-3 W.

Betsy Creech has been battling through some elbow pain recently and had me a little nervous of being able to finish tonight. She struggled early against a pretty quick York opponent in Patrick. The first set went into a long tiebreak in which Betsy came back, saved a set point at 5-6 and won by score of 9-7. Once that set was done with, Betsy really seemed to feel more comfortable and cruised to the end with a second set win by score of 6-1.

I'm sure everyone got a good chuckle out of the old guys trying to play some mixed doubles tonight with our players. I had a blast trying to keep up with Coach Clark of York (who played college tennis at Eastern Washington University), but unfortunately Maggie & I dropped a really fun proset 4-8.

Our reserve action was slanted heavily in favor of the Trojans tonight. We actually ended up getting a full reserve match in and the results were as follows:

1s: Erin Brooks (pictured) W 8-2, 2s: MC Faulkner W 8-1, 3s: Olivia Huckabee W 8-1, 4s: Alexis Peddy W 8-0, 5s: Caroline Herron W 8-0, 1d: Karlee Fox & Randi Honeycutt W 8-0, 2d: Emily Cramer/Natalie Hageman L7-9, 6s: Hannah Cramer W 8-0.

The official reserve match would be a 6-1 win in our favor.

Thursday is a big match and we need every girl ready to play and cheer to the best of their ability. Fort Mill will come strong at us and we cannot afford to back down. We have the ability to be successful, but it will only happen if everyone gives it their best.

Go Trojans!

Location: Northwestern
Result: Northwestern 6, York 0

1s: Chandler Green (N) def Mary Goss 6-2, 6-0
2s: Maggie Orr (N) def Brandi Neely 6-0, 6-1
3s: Betsy Creech (N) def Katia Patrick 7-6(7), 6-1
4s: Courtney Cox (N) def Hannah Whitesides 6-3, 6-1
5s: Lauren Cox (N) def Kate Shirley 6-4, 6-3

1d: DNP
2d: Emily Edwards/Hillary Tindall (N) def Sarah Webb/Allison Rogers 6-1, 6-3

Records: Northwestern 4-4, 2-3 Region 3AAAA, York 4-5, 0-5 Region 3AAAA