On Thursday, March 6th, the men’s tennis team faced some struggles on the courts against Ashley High School.
The temps were low, and the wind was blowing; it was not ideal tennis weather. Nonetheless, the team joined at the courts at 3:00 to begin practicing for their third match of the season. Ashley arrived before the match’s scheduled start time to practice with their opponents, which is typical of a tennis match.
The boys lined up beside their coach, Scott Mehalick, in chronological order of seed. Junior Kyle McCoy stood first in line, followed by junior Tucker Hamilton, then junior Chayton Cheers, senior Sean Riggs, junior Leyton Caulder and senior Cooper Rogers. On the other side, beside Ashley’s coach, stood their opponents respectively. After welcoming Ashley’s players to the school and thanking them for their attendance, Coach Mehalick declared the individual matches and each pair of boys were sent off to their courts.
Strong winds during a tennis match set players up for failure. Without the ability to predict where the ball will go, the concept of tennis is out of the picture for your typical player. Although it was an overall loss, the boys put up a fight against a highly skilled opponent.
Individual matches were played in what is known as a “best of three” set. Pairs will play three games of six points, (or two games if one player had won two in a row) and the player to win two out of three of the games is declared victorious. The top two players of the team, McCoy and Hamilton, finished with exactly matching scores. They both lost the first two sets with a score of 2-6. The following four players also finished with identical scores, with the first two games being a 0-6 loss.
Individual matches are only half of the story, though. After players were done one-on-one, it was time for doubles. Doubles are played as a “first to eight” superset, and the rules of winning speak for themselves.
McCoy and Hamilton served as an iconic duo as the first team of doubles. They worked hard, but they lost 2-8. Cheers and Riggs joined forces to earn the match’s highest score of all doubles teams with an unfortunate loss of 8-3. Caulder and Rogers worked together to put themselves to the test, however, they also lost 8-1.
While all doubles matches also resulted in an L, the boys didn’t seem too upset with their overall loss at the end of the day. It was a cold and windy day on the courts and going home was the real prize.
