DRAFFENVILLE – Tennis season is underway with three matches already in the books against Mayfield, CCA and Tilghman this past week.
Coming off a very improved 2014 season, Head Coach Tyler Brockman is hoping to improve on the successes of their postseason last year when they sent two teams to the quarterfinals of the regional tournament.
Brockman feels that his girl’s team has improved since last season with some veterans and promising new players on the roster.
“We have three of our top four girls returning from last season”, Brockman said. “There are a few new players that have come on to the team that I think will really help us. Elizabeth Padgett with be our #1 player and I look for her to have a strong season and we also have Hannah Travis, Nikki Fehrenbacher and Abbey Harrington back.”
Several new players have joined the team on both the girls and boys side.
Brockman looks for the boy’s team to improve on last season with veteran Adam Padgett back as a senior and are expecting good play out of seniors Conner Jones, Sam Gold and Will Forbis.
“Conner made it to the region quarterfinals in doubles last season and I expect big things from his this season”, Brockman said.
Kicking their season off on Tuesday at Mayfield, the Marshals suffered a loss in both the girls and boys sides with the girls falling 6-3 and boys 8-1.
In singles matches against Mayfield, the girls picked up two wins by Hannah Travis 8-6 over Laney Coplen and Nikki Fehrenbacher 8-6 over Kayla Terrell.
In doubles play, Padgett and Vincent defeated Terrell and Coplen 8-5 for the win.
The boy’s lone win against Mayfield came in singles play with Jones and Gold defeating Puckett and Puckett 8-4.
On Thursday in their first home match, the girls lost to CCA 4-0 while the boy’s defeated CCA 4-2, winning all four singles matches.
Jones defeated Branden Smith 8-1, Gold defeated James Luke McGee 8-1, Matthew Lawson defeated Noah Arb 8-3 and Alex Chapman defeated Aaron Bruce 8-3.
“This was a very tough match for our girls”, Brockman said. “CCA only has three players but all of them are quality players with experience. Our girls played well but just weren’t able to pull out the victories.”
Friday, against a strong Tilghman team, the girls lost 9-0 and the boy’s lost 7-2.
The boy’s two wins came in doubles with Padgett and Forbis defeating Jones and Jones 8-4 and Lawson and Chapman winning their match against Ross and Gream 9-8.
“Tilghman has a lot of players with experience and skill and it showed today”, Brockman said. “Our guys played well in a lot of places. I thought our doubles teams all played really well. Adam, Conner and Alex all had very competitive matches in singles and just ran out of gas against some good players.”
