The Shadow
On senior night this past Tuesday at the tennis court at Clifton Middle School, five Alleghany Mountaineers (8-8) senior boys tennis players were honored; Baron Leitch, Nathan Clark, Coy Brown, Coree Nicely, and Ethanael Elmore.
Following the senior introductions, the Mounties got on the tennis court and took care of business as the team cruised to their eighth win of the season following an 8-1 victory over the Carroll County Cavaliers.
The seniors went undefeated on the day collecting a total of five of the teams eight wins between singles and doubles.
Improving on his team best in 11 singles wins, 23 overall wins, and tied in double wins with 12, Baron Leitch defeated Tolley 8-5 in singles. It was a bounce back victory for Leitch, who lost his last time out on the court against Tolley, 8-3. That came in a Mounties 6-3 road victory which then had snapped the teams four game losing streak.
Seniors, Nathan Clark and Coy Brown, had an impressive 8-2 victory in doubles. The duo improved to 2-2 when playing doubles together.
Meanwhile, freshman, Eli Entsminger, continued to impress during his first year. The Mounties freshman defeated Louis Martinez 8-2. The victory was Entsminger’s eighth singles victory which tied senior Coree Nicely for the second most singles victories on the team. Nicely, won his singles match over Paul Marshall 8-2.
“They (seniors) showed up and worked hard. They have fun personalities and tried to make the team better. They are very good leaders who will be successful in life”, said Mounties head coach, Seth Davis, on his senior class.
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Following the teams senior night victory, the Mounties traveled to Glenvar the following day on Wednesday to meet up with the Highlanders.
The Highlanders had previously knocked off the Mounties on April 20th, 7-2.
This time around, the result was the same, however, the Mounties made the Highlanders work harder for the win as the Mounties nearly pulled off the upset, but ultimately fell short falling 5-4.
The Mounties started off with a 1-0 lead following Leitch’s 12th singles victory. Leitch, knocked off the Highlanders top seed, Alec Mcllwain, 8-4.
After the Mounties dropped a singles match, Maddox Crance, came back with a big singles victory to put the team back ahead 2-1 following his 8-5 win over Blaine Bishop.
With the score evenly tied 2-2 between both programs, Clark, picked up an 8-3 victory over Ian Kelly, which put the Mounties in front once again at 3-2.
The Highlanders would win the sixth singles match to even the game at 3-3.
It came down to doubles, where the Highlanders took two out of the three matches. The Highlanders were able to knock off the duo pairs of Leitch and Crance as well as Entsminger and Clark.
Despite the loss the team had a big moral victory, the pair of Nicely and Brown, rallied from being down 7-4 to win 9-7 in doubles.
“We improved, which is what any coach would want. Looking at Riverheads, they beats us 9-0 (first time), then we almost beat them the second time (5-4). (Against) Glenvar (we) went from 7-2 to 5-4. We had our chances yesterday. I can’t fault the guys efforts. Baron and Maddox, had nice wins in singles, avenging previous losses to Glenvar. Nathan Clark had a great win. Coree and Coy fought back from being down. We now have a clean slate for the region tournament and I anticipate us playing well as a team and in the individual tournament”, said coach Davis on his team performance against the Highlanders.
As of now, the Mounties will be either playing the Narrows Green Wave or the Giles Spartans at home (Clifton Middle School) in the first round of the regional tournament. The Mounties are 2-0 on the season against the Green Wave, defeating them 9-0 and 8-1. The Mounties did not play Spartans this season. However, the Green Wave and Spartans did split their two meetings with one another 5-4 in both.
