DOBSON — East Surry ascended to the top of the Foothills 2A Conference standings with a 6-3 win over Surry Central on March 27.
The pair came into Monday’s match tied for the conference’s No. 1 spot, with each boasting 4-0 records in league play. East won the overall match by taking 4-of-6 singles contests and 2-of-3 doubles matches.
The 2022 FH2A Title race also came down to East and Central, and Central swept East to win the program’s first conference championship in recent memory. The Golden Eagles finished the season 12-0 in league play, followed by the Cardinals at 10-2 and the Forbush Falcons at 8-4.
The 2023 battle for a conference title appears to be a two-team race. Forbush once again sits just outside the top two at 3-2 having lost to East Surry 9-0 and Surry Central 6-3. North Wilkes is also 3-2 in the conference, but has already lost 9-0 to East Surry and 8-1 to Surry Central this season.
East Surry, now 8-2 on the season, won its sixth-consecutive match by defeating Surry Central. Prior to 2022, the Cardinals hadn’t won more than six matches total in a season in at least 15 years.
East’s win was anything but straightforward as the match featured two third-set tiebreakers and one set tiebreaker. This is nothing new for the teams, though, as both 2022 meetings between East and Central featured at least three tiebreakers.
Far from a tiebreaker was the No. 5 singles match. East’s Noah Hopkins was the first Cardinal to pick up a win by defeating Eduardo Romero-Rondin 6-1, 6-1.
The two remaining singles matches to finish in straight sets were played on courts No. 1 and 2. Central’s Michael Tucker topped Kade Talton 6-4, 6-3 in No. 2 singles, and fellow Golden Eagle Josh Pardue bested Levi Watson 6-3, 7-5 in No. 1 singles.
Watson held a 5-2 lead in the second set, but Pardue fought back to win five-straight games.
East Surry’s Hayden Douglas evened the overall match score at 2-2 with a win in No. 6 singles. Douglas won the first set 6-3, then Central’s Chris Hall battled to win the second set 7-5. The pair went down to the wire in the third-set tiebreaker before Douglas eventually won 11-9.
The Eagles’ Isaac Eller won the first set of the No. 4 singles match 6-1, then the Cards’ Lupe Chavez won the second set 6-4. Chavez took a 5-1 advantage in the third-set tiebreaker, but Eller showed he wasn’t out of the fight yet by winning seven of the next 10 points to make it 8-8. Chavez proceeded to win the next two points and give East Surry the singles advantage.
The final singles match to conclude was the No. 4 bout between Surry Central’s Maddox Martin and East Surry’s Colsen Semones. Semones came away with a tight 7-5 victory in the first set, but Martin responded by going up 5-2 in the second.
Similar to Pardue on court No. 1, Semones won the next four games to take a 6-5 game lead. However, Martin won the 12th game of the set to force a set tiebreaker. If Martin won the seven-point tiebreaker the pair would turn around and play another tiebreaker to 10.
Semones scored first, but neither player scored consecutively through the first seven points. Semones went up 6-3 before Martin held serve, then Semones wrapped up the victory by scoring the next point.
Surry Central stayed in the match by winning No. 1 doubles as Pardue and Tucker defeated Watson and Talton 8-5.
Semones and Chavez teamed up in No. 2 doubles to defeat Martin and Eller 8-6, and East’s No. 3 doubles duo of Hopkins and Douglas topped Romero-Rondin and Hall 8-2.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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