All pumped up (10/18/05)

Randy Evans and Tyler Rigby will have less time to prepare for the upcoming basketball season than most of their teammates. But they have a great reason.

They are still spending their afternoons swinging away on the tennis courts with coach Barry Weaver after winning both of their regional matches Saturday to qualify for the doubles state finals.

“That’s always in the back of our minds,” the players joked in an interview Monday of missing out on another week of basketball conditioning, adding that they had talked about it on the court right after defeating a doubles team from Lebanon Saturday.

Rigby and Evans claimed the title of best team in Jay County history this weekend as they took two three-set wins, both in third-set tiebreakers, to make it to the state finals.

Prior to this weekend Dan Dirksen (1987) was the only player in Patriot history to win a match in the singles/doubles regional. Evans and Rigby earned their spot in the record books by winning two and earning a trip to Indianapolis Park Tudor Friday.

They won their first regional match at Indianapolis North Central 2-6, 7-5, 7-6 (7-2) over Anderson’s Jonathan Fogle and Richard Hiatt despite losing the first five games. They followed with a 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (8-6) win over Greg Milam and Brad Mustin of Lebanon.

“I thought it was the best tennis we’ve played all year,” said Rigby. “We were hitting our shots. We knew where we were going to hit it, and that’s where we hit it. It all worked out good.”

The Patriot pair breezed through the team sectional tournament, winning all three of their matches in straight sets as they helped Jay County to win just its third team sectional title in school history. But since then they’ve been in pressure-packed situations.

Rigby and Evans have gone three sets in each of their four matches in the team regional, doubles sectional and doubles regional. They’ve played three third-set tiebreakers in that span, coming out on top in all of them.

“We’re handling the pressure really well right now,” said Evans. “We’re used to it.

“This year it seems like the score doesn’t really matter. When we’re down love-40, it’s always in our minds that we can come back.”

Rigby and Evans, two of just three seniors on the 2005 JCHS squad, had the option in each of the last two seasons to split and play singles. But they chose to stay together, believing the partnership was their best chance at success. And they have proved that theory to be correct.

Their 22 wins are the most by any Patriot players in a single season, surpassing the record of 20 set by Mark Bailey in 1977 and tied by Dirksen in 1987. They rank in the top 10 in school history in career wins, career winning percentage and single-season winning percentage.

They are the only Jay County players ever to make back-to-back appearances in the singles/doubles regional, and have compiled a 43-20 record in three seasons as partners.

“Over the course of the year I think the major difference is that before it was, ‘We have to hit hard because everybody else hits hard,” said Weaver. “And now, through maturity and gaining strength and all the things that come with getting another year older they can already hit it hard. Now they know where they want to place it and actually make the transition into playing tennis.

“Before they played pretty solid tennis, but this year it’s placing it where you want it with the proper spin and making the other team react to what you’re doing instead of reacting to what they do. I think that’s the major thing from last year to this year.”

Those differences have shown as Evans and Rigby have really lit up the courts since the beginning of tournament play last year.

After finishing the 2004 regular season with a 9-5 record the duo won five consecutive tournament matches before dropping out in the doubles regional to Lebanon’s Joseph Swanson and Benjamin Hinds in the opening round of regional play. They added a 22-3 mark this year — they lost twice early in the season at the DeKalb Invitational and Sept. 20 against Delta — giving them 27 wins in their last 31 matches.

They are now on an eight-match winning streak and just three wins away from a state championship.

Rigby said he, Evans and Weaver talked before Monday’s practice about who they might face in their opening state match Friday at 2 p.m. The brackets for the state finals will be released today.

“Pretty much everybody is going to be, at this point, really, really good,” Rigby said. “We’re just going to have to go in and play our best tennis.”

“I want to play solid tennis,” added Evans. “I think if me and Tyler play the best tennis that we can we have a real good chance of winning. ... I think we can. We’re so far in it and we’ve had so many practices that I think our talent and our ability is going to take over and then we’ll just go from there.”

Weaver agreed with his senior duo.

“I want them to play their best tennis,” he said. “That’s what we start with the very first day of practice — the last of the year, that’s when you want to play your best. ... If we do have to lose, that’s how we want to go down.

“I hope we can get on the court and make (that) happen, and if we do I think we can do some damage this weekend.”[[In-content Ad]]