Mount Airy tennis broke out of recent funk with a 9-0 win over East Surry on Wednesday.
The Bears came into the match against East having lost three straight to fall to 2-4 on the season. Mount Airy’s losses have been against quality opponents: Mount Tabor, which currently has an undefeated record in the Piedmont Triad 3A Conference; Davie, which is in first place in the Central Piedmont 4A Conference; and two to Bishop McGuinness.
Mount Airy coach Luke Graham said the team is better off having played a tough non-conference schedule, but admitted that the 6-3 and 5-4 losses to Bishop did sting a little.
“We played the first match (vs. Bishop) without our No. 1,” Graham said. “Not making excuses, but thought that would be tough to overcome. I thought we missed a real opportunity in the rematch to even things up.”
“They’ve been the best team in our league last couple of years and until we can collectively play like we believe we can win instead of playing not to lose, struggling to finish people off and putting balls away – it’s going to be hard to change.”
Graham’s message to the Bears prior to Wednesday’s match was that it was time to turn things around.
“I’m proud of our guys’ effort today though,” he said. “Thought we definitely played our best tennis so far this season today. Hope today helps the team to start building some momentum and some guys who’ve recently struggled can gain some confidence going forward.”
The Bears earned three double bagel victories in the No. 4-No. 6 singles matches. Carson Hill, Nathan Hock and John Juno all won without dropping a single game.
Hill defeated Lee Knight in the No. 4 singles match, Hock defeated Dale Harold in the No. 5 match and Juno defeated Jacob Haywood in the No. 6 match.
Mount Airy senior Peyton Harmon defeated Cardinal freshman Levi Watson 6-0 in the first set of the No. 2 singles match, but faced heavy resistance in the second set. Watson won two of the first five games in the second set before Harmon won out.
No. 3 Luke Kirkman also had some trouble in the second set of his singles match. The Granite Bear senior won 6-1 in the first set, but only won 6-4 in the second.
East Surry’s Cooper Motsinger was the only Cardinal player to take a set from Mount Airy. After losing the first set 6-0 to Georgie Kriek, Motsinger won the second set of the No. 1 singles match 6-3.
The duo went to a third-set tiebreaker, which Kriek won 10-5.
In doubles, Kriek and Hill teamed together to defeated Motsinger and Watson 8-2 in the No. 1 spot. Mount Airy’s senior duo of Harmon and Kirkman defeated Talton and Knight 8-1 in No. 2 doubles, and Hock and Juno bested Harold and Haywood 8-1 in No. 3 doubles.
These teams meet again on April 19 in Pilot Mountain. Mount Airy’s next match is against South Stokes on April 12, and East Surry travels to Bishop McGuinness the same day.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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