Trojans Finish Region in Tie for Third

We went to Gaffney and our match went almost as we expected. We played hard from beginning to end & took the match to increase our region record to 6-4 overall. Other region results tonight included Clover beating York 6-0 to finish tied with us at 6-4 in the region. The upset of the day was Fort Mill defeating Nation Ford 4 to 3 after playing the #1 doubles match. Fort Mill and Nation Ford finish as co-champions in the region & tiebreakers will have to be played out to determine playoff seeding.

Monday's match with South Pointe will be our senior night & we will have a little celebration afterwards to thank Drayton, Michael & Tyler for their contributions to Northwestern tennis over the years. All three boys will be playing singles matches against the Stallions as we will mix up the lineup some to have a good, fun match with our cross town rivals.

Go Trojans!

Location: Gaffney
Result: Northwestern 5, Gaffney 1

Singles
1- Seth Russell def Clayton Whitt 6-0, 6-1
2- Drayton Wade def James BeLue 6-1, 6-0
3- Hunter Love def Nick Parker 6-0, 6-1
4- Mark Lovingood (G) def John Clark 6-4, 2-6, 10-5
5- Jordan Beaver def Milah Shah 6-1, 6-0

Doubles
2- Collins Mauldin/Michael Baldwin def Aaron Warren/Alex Hitchcliffe 6-1, 6-0

Final Region 3-AAAA Standings
1- Fort Mill 8-2
1- Nation Ford 8-2 (tie)
3- Northwestern 6-4
3- Clover 6-4 (tie)
5- York 2-8
6- Gaffney 0-10

Trojans Drop to Third Place tie with Loss to Fort Mill

I told the boys after the 2-5 loss tonight at Fort Mill that we need to be big time Nation Ford fans for the day tomorrow while we focus on defeating Gaffney. The current region standings have Nation Ford in first place (8-1), Fort Mill in second (7-2), Northwestern & Clover in third (5-4). Nation Ford plays Fort Mill, we go to Gaffney, and Clover hosts York in the final region matches of 2010.

Tonights match had two highlights for us. First was that Hunter Love (pictured) played as well as he has all season in a grudge match against Lovin from Fort Mill. Hunter had lost in their previous meeting in straight sets & was determined to return the favor. Boy, did he ever. He dominated from the first point to the last as he claimed a 6-1, 6-3 victory for the Trojans.

Our undefeated doubles team of Collins Mauldin and Michael Baldwin stayed perfect as a pair this season. Huckaby & Bullard of Fort Mill are good doubles players, but in the end the cohesiveness of our guys paid off as they claimed 1 out of two tiebreakers in the end for our second point.

Mission at hand is Gaffney. We need to take care of business there to insure we are at least tied with Clover for third. After that, we'll say our prayers for Nation Ford as I have no idea how the tiebreaker will work out in the end if Fort Mill & Nation Ford are both 8-2 and Clover & us are both 6-4.

Go Trojans!

Location: Fort Mill
Result: Fort Mill 5, Northwestern 2

Singles
1- Tyler Davis def Seth Russell 6-3, 6-4
2- Kyle Patterson def Drayton Wade 4-6, 6-4, 10-6
3- Hunter Love (N) def Chase Lovin 6-1, 6-3
4- Andres Leon def John Clark 6-0, 6-2
5- Alex Masters def Jordan Beaver 6-3, 3-6, 10-7

Doubles
1- Davis/Leon def Russell/Love 8-4
2- Collins Mauldin/Michael Baldwin (N) def Clay Bullard/Cory Huckaby 6-2, 6-7, 10-6

Annoying Rain out at Fort Mill

It spit on us as we waited to depart for Fort Mill, but seemed like it wouldn't accumulate and our courts were fine at 4:00 when we left. As we pulled into Fort Mill HS, the spit became a sprinkle that made the courts barely unplayable.

This match will be made up tomorrow at 5PM at Fort Mill HS. The bus will again depart the courts at 4:10pm. No one will need to bring drinks or snacks to the match. The boys have been informed to pack their own stuff for tomorrow.

Trojans Improve Region Record to 5-3 with Win over York

It was a great night for tennis at Northwestern. We had perfect weather and near flawless tennis was played by the Trojans tonight. We played down a man tonight with John Clark having sprained or broken his left ankle in practice last night, but we still dominated from top to bottom.


The victory over York gives us an overall record of 9-3 and we sit firmly in third place at this point courtesy of a Nation Ford (7-1) win over Clover (4-4) tonight. Fort Mill (6-2) is temporarily ahead of us in second. We can tie for second place with a win at Fort Mill next Tuesday & we would have the tiebreak edge over them due to our best region win (Nation Ford) being better than their best region win (Clover).


Jordan Beaver bumped up from his normal #5 spot to #4 in place of John. He posted similar results as we are accustomed to seeing out of him and swept both sets against Patrick of York.


Chris Cassidy (pictured right) entered the lineup at #5 singles in place of Jordan's vacated #5 spot. The boy was up for the challenge. Only 2 games were surrendered to Stowe of the Cougars as Chris gave us a solid W.

Our doubles team of Collins Mauldin & Michael Baldwin were informed by me that they are currently undefeated when playing together this season and are likely contenders for all-region status, should they continue their dominance over our next three region foes. They responded huge and shutout the team from York of Womble & Sanford.

Our top 3, Seth Russell @ 1, Drayton Wade @2, and Hunter Love @3 were all solid and posted victories in straight sets while only surrendering 11 total games between the three lines to the Cougars.



We are without a doubt the deepest team in Region 3-AAAA. We secured reserve singles wins by Tyler Leonard (8-0), Brian Fitzpatrick (8-1), Key Barkley (8-3), Daniel Hawkins, pictured left (8-0), and Ben Barkley (8-0). Daniel & Key teamed up for a doubles shutout (8-0) and the Schroeder brothers, Collin & Jacob, got in the mix for an 8-6 win as well.



Fort Mill is next and revenge should be on our minds. Fort Mill got us early in a tight contest that was decided on two tiebreaker matches, which we dropped both. You can bet your buns that we will be doing a lot of tiebreakers in practice on Monday to prepare ourselves to take claim to the second seed and secure a home playoff match for the first time in the last 4 years.


Go Trojans!

Location: Northwestern
Result: Northwestern 6, York 0

Singles
1- Seth Russell def Chris Suggs 6-0, 6-2
2- Drayton Wade def Jensen Fisk 6-1, 6-2
3- Hunter Love def Kyle Spears 6-1, 7-5
4- Jordan Beaver def Nathan Patrick 6-0, 6-0
5- Chris Cassidy def Andrew Stowe 6-1, 6-1

Doubles
2- Michael Baldwin/Collins Mauldin def Charlie Womble/Will Sanford 6-0, 6-0

Trojans Drop Region Match to Clover

This was a forgettable match for us. We drop into third with now a 4-3 region record and an 8-3 mark over all.

Location: Clover
Result: Clover 5, Northwestern 1

Singles
1- Chase Altieri def Seth Russell 6-1, 6-0
2- Will Decker def Drayton Wade 2-6, 6-4, 10-4
3- Nick Deahl def Hunter Love 7-5, 6-1
4- Tucker Deloach def John Clark 6-2, 6-2
5- JC Dougherty def Jordan Beaver 0-6, 6-2, 10-4

Doubles
2- Michael Baldwin/Collins Mauldin (N) def Garrett Smith/Patrick Smith 6-2, 6-4

Trojans Defeat Rival Bearcats

I can't say it was the prettiest tennis to ever be played on the Northwestern courts, but it was good enough to win tonight as we defeated Rock Hill HS 4 matches to 2. The win improves our overall record to 8-2 overall and we remain 4-2 in our region. Our match at Clover tomorrow will require us to raise our game a couple notches in order to improve our region record.

Jordan Beaver (pictured right) at 5 singles was the first to finish and did so in winning fashion. Jordan went up early in the first set against Adams of Rock Hill and claimed the first set 6-0. The second set was a little tighter and Jordan finished it off 6-4 in the end.

Hunter Love cleared court 3 next with our second victory of the night. Hunter played near flawless in the first set against Silverman of Rock Hill, a very steady and consistent player. The second set played on serve until Hunter took his serve at 3-4. Hunter held serve, broke Silverman, and held again to close out the match and the second team victory.

Seth Russell finished next at 1 singles. Something was goofy in the first set as Seth fell behind quickly to his long time friend and rival, Lee for the Bearcats. Seth played better in the second set in stretches, but it wasn't enough to force a tiebreak and Rock Hill took their first win.

We then had two matches go into tiebreakers at nearly the same time. John Clark had claimed a quick first set at 4 singles before dropping the second. The doubles team of Tyler Leonard & Collins Mauldin (pictured at bottom) had dropped their first set before making a comeback in the second.

Coach: "John, hit like you do in warm ups and stop pushing balls down the middle."
John: "OK"
Tiebreaker score - 10-5 for John

Tyler and Collins had gotten on a roll in the second set and the momentum carried through the tiebreaker as they also won by score of 10-5. The doubles victory was the clinching 4th win for us.

Drayton Wade remained on the court at 2 singles. Drayton played possibly the best tennis I have ever seen him play in the first set. He made excellent decisions and executed in almost every situation. The second set turned in the favor of MacGlauchlin of Rock Hill's favor as he began to dictate the tempo a little more and claimed the second set. The tiebreaker was lopsided at first until Drayton made a late charge. It wasn't enough and Rock Hill claimed it's second point of the night.

Off to Clover tomorrow we go. This will be an improved Clover team than we played the first time through. Their top player is now playing singles and I assume he will play at the top of their lineup. We will probably face new opponents at every court. Anything less than our best effort will not be enough if we wish to remain in second place in region 3-AAAA all by ourselves.

CN2 coverage (click on April 13th Sports Roundup):

http://www.cn2.com/web/guest/sports;jsessionid=A60A7C1F3999C9A6528AA986A71B7FCF

Go Trojans!

Location: Northwestern
Result: Northwestern 4, Rock Hill 2

Singles
1 - Austin Lee (R) def Seth Russell 6-1, 6-4
2 - Alik MacGlauchlin (R) def Drayton Wade 5-7, 6-4, 10-5
3 - Hunter Love def Alex Silverman 6-1, 6-4
4 - John Clark def Nick Cauthen 6-2, 3-6, 10-5
5 - Jordan Beaver def Mike Adams 6-0, 6-4

Doubles
1 - DNP
2 - Collins Mauldin / Tyler Leonard def Austin Shore / Tony Ly 4-6, 6-3, 10-5

Not Our Night against Nation Ford

We got off to a great start to the match and took first set wins in 5 of the initial 6 matches. However, Nation Ford played real well across the board and took second set wins in 4 of those 6. We ended up dropping the doubles match to decide the match and suffered a region loss to Nation Ford and temporarily surrendered our first place lead. We now stand 7-2 overall and 4-2 in the region. Next on our radar is a very important non-region match against Rock Hill High as well as a region pairing with Clover after spring break.

Hunter Love (pictured) seemed to snap out of his recent funk in singles matches and dominated the #3 singles match for us tonight against a good Falcon opponent. Hunter played smart, consistent tennis to come out with a straight set win and the first team win for the Trojans tonight.

Our doubles team also was real good tonight. Michael Baldwin and Collins Mauldin (pictured at the bottom) controlled the match from beginning to end for a straight set win and our second team win of the night, putting up ahead 2 to zip.

At this point, John Clark was the featured match on the courts. John had dominated a first set and won it 6-1. The second set swayed back and forth and ended up knotted at 6-all and needed a tiebreak to decide it. The set tiebreaker went Nation Ford's way and the match tiebreak did as well to give Nation Ford it's first win.

Drayton Wade played well against a tough #2 opponent from Nation Ford. The score may have been straight sets for the Falcons, but Drayton battled to the end in a match that featured great athleticism and even better sportsmanship.

The attention then shifted to Seth Russell at #1 and Jordan Beaver at #5. Seth had claimed a close first set 7-5 and Jordan had won his first set 6-2. Unfortunately, both dropped second sets by identical 6-4 scores and needed their matches decided in 10-point tiebreakers. Seth grabbed the win at #1 with an 11-9 decision, but unfortunately Jordan suffered his first defeat of the season at line 5 by a 7-10 margin.

Under the lights we went to play #1 doubles to decide the match and the region lead. Seth and Hunter took on Ott and Randar from Nation Ford. The first set was ugly for the Trojans as too many errors were committed and the set dropped 2-6. The second set continued some bad momentum as we trailed 0-3 before making a charge to get a lead at 4-3. It began to seem like another tiebreak was about to take place. However, at this point Nation Ford raised their game and we were unable to match it as we dropped the second set.

All we can do is press forward into more matches to determine our final spot in the region 3-AAAA race. At this point, we need to hope for Nation Ford to drop a match to either Fort Mill or Clover while we beat both those schools in order for us to have a shot at the title. If the boys put the rackets up for spring break, it will be very hard to accomplish. However, if they get out and work over the break while our opponents take time off, we have an opportunity to get back into the region hunt.

Go Trojans!

Location: Northwestern
Result: Nation Ford 4, Northwestern 3

Singles
1- Seth Russell (NW) def Madison Ott 7-5, 4-6, 11-9
2- Danny Randar (NF) def Drayton Wade 6-4, 6-3
3- Hunter Love (NW) def Tyler Morris 6-2, 6-2
4- Brandon McGlohon (NF) def John Clark 1-6, 7-6, 10-8
5- Kyle Lengel (NF) def Jordan Beaver 2-6, 6-4, 10-7

Doubles
1- Ott/Randar (NF) def Russell/Love 6-2, 6-4
2- Michael Baldwin/Collins Mauldin (NW) def Alex McLelland/Paul Hoberek 6-1, 6-4

Michael Baldwin (left) and Collins Mauldin (right) have been the top doubles team in region 3-AAAA this season.