The Alleghany Mountaineers (7-5) boys tennis team opened the month of April with back to back victories against Martinsville which improved their record to then at 6-1.
Right after that, the team went a different route and lost four straight matches.
With the month of April wrapping up, the Mounties found themselves back in the winning column following a 6-3 match victory on the road against the Carroll County Cavaliers.
“It was nice to get our seventh win. The guys are more confident, but we also know three of our next four matches will be tough”, said Mounties head coach, Seth Davis, on his teams victory over the Cavaliers.
In the teams seventh victory, senior, Coree Nicely, snapped a three match losing streak with a big performance as he picked up his seventh victory of the season following an 8-1 victory.
The Mounties went 4-2 in singles and 2-1 in doubles in the win over the Cavaliers.
Davis, said that the Cavaliers one and two seeds were two of the toughest challenges that the Cavaliers presented against the Mounties. Talley and Richardson from the Cavaliers won their singles matches despite solid efforts from Baron Leitch and Maddox Crance. The duo of Talley and Richardson, also play doubles together and won their match against Leitch and Nicely. It was the first time Leitch and Nicely had been paired since the third match of the season.
Last week Davis mentioned the recent performances of freshman Eli Entsminger and how happy he had been with his progress in his first season playing tennis. Entsminger continued with his recent success as he also improved to 7-4 on the season in solo matches following his 8-0 victory on Friday. Entsminger improved to a two match win streak.
The Mounties now have several days to prepare for the next match this coming Friday at home (Clifton Middle School) against the Radford Bobcats. The Bobcats defeated the Mounties 8-1 on April 12th.
“We just have to improve on our groundstrokes and consistency. I just want us to play as well as we can, no matter who we are playing. That needs to be our focus. We can’t control who our opponent is. I do hope we have a better showing against Radford this time”, said Davis on playing the Bobcats a second time.
The Mounties will have four days of practice to prepare for their match with the Bobcats, but Davis isn’t going to try anything fancy to prepare for them a second time around.
“With us not playing until Friday, we’re going back to the basic fundamentals. We’ll work in some strategy and doubles situations, but we have to get better”, said Davis.
On what those fundamentals might be, Davis added “Just hitting the ball cleaner and deeper into the court. Also, moving our feet to get into the proper position to hit.”
Davis said he had no plans to change with his singles lineup, but would go back to Leitch and Maddox as well as Nicely and Entsminger as doubles pairs.
The match against the Bobcats is set for Friday at 4:30 p.m. at Clifton Middle School.
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Alleghany 6 at Carroll County 3
April 22, 2022
SINGLES:
J Talley (C) defeated Baron Leitch, 8-3
E Richardson (C) defeated Maddox Crance, 8-3
Coree Nicely (A) defeated L. Marshall, 8-1
Eli Entsminger (A) defeated G Rippey, 8-0
Nathan Clark (A) won by forfeit
Coy Brown (A) won by forfeit
DOUBLES:
Talley/Richardson (C) defeated Leitch/Nicely, 8-2
Crance/Entsminger (A) defeated Marshall/Rippey, 8-0
Clark/Brown (A) won by forfeit
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