The trip over to Lancaster taught me some things about our team tonight. Even in defeat, we had players step up to the challenge against a traditional power in local girls high school tennis.
The 1-5 defeat drops our overall record to 5-5 and our region mark is now 1-2. We still have to host Gaffney Thursday and travel over to Spartanburg next Tuesday to complete our first round of region matches.
Maggie Orr continued to play well at #1, despite unfavorable results against another top-20 ranked player in the state of South Carolina. I feel for Maggie in the results that she is seeing for her effort. She still plays every point as hard as she can and forces her opponents to beat her, rather than make unforced errors. I cannot ask for more than that.
Betsy Creech continued her hot streak tonight, playing up a spot and filling in at #2. She fell behind early before mounting a huge comeback in the first set to take it 7-5. She went out to a big lead in the second set and the end of it played fairly even as she closed it out 6-3 for our lone win tonight. Betsy's play is the example I want others to follow. She played up & challenged herself to play at a high level. She executed and secured a very satisfying win for herself.
Alexis Peddy played a fellow senior from Lancaster that has played all top-3 spots for the Bruins over the past 6 years. For a player with Alexis's one year of experience and some change, I knew she could be outgunned in the match. Gardner played very smart tennis and was too much for us at #3 tonight. Credit goes to the Lancaster opponent as she was just really good tonight.
Lauren Cox's match at #4 can best be described as a roller coaster by me. At times, Lauren played great tennis and other times she just fell apart and made too many unforced errors at bad times. The score is more lopsided than the talent level would suggest as Lancaster took the match 6-1, 6-2.
Karlee Fox filled the #5 spot as well as I could have asked. Playing a senior that has played singles lines at Lancaster her entire career, Karlee went ahead at times, and then fell back. Her hot start was countered by a player that just seemed to get better as the match went on.
Lancaster made a decision to split their two chosen singles players for doubles action tonight, rather than play them together at #1. Therefore, they made a call to pair up their #1 & #6 at 1st doubles and their #3 with their #7 at 2nd doubles. I kept our pair of Emily Edwards and Erin Brooks together to compete at 2nd doubles. It just was too much to overcome the Bruins strong play tonight as we dropped that line.
As the season goes on, we can beat this level of opponent. We must raise the level of our tennis in practice and play at a higher level in matches.
Go Trojans!
Location: UCS-Lancaster
Result: Lancaster 5, Northwestern 1
1s: Lyndsey Hegler def Maggie Orr 6-1, 6-1
2s: Betsy Creech (N) def Sarah Hicks 7-5, 6-4
3s: Morgan Gardner def Alexis Peddy 6-0, 6-1
4s: Carley Adams def Lauren Cox 6-1, 6-2
5s: Sarah Gilreath def Karlee Fox 7-5, 6-3
1d: DNP
2d: Morgan Gardner/McKenzie Blanton def Emily Edwards/Erin Brooks 6-0, 6-0
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
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