Evans, Rigby reach regional (10/08/04)

GAS CITY — When the season began, this is what Randy Evans and Tyler Rigby planned for.

The pair was faced with the chance to split and play singles along with fellow junior Kurtis Hess. Instead, they wanted to stay together, expecting their chance at a deep tournament run was best standing side-by-side.

They were right.

The Jay County No. 1 doubles pair completed their run through the Peru doubles sectional Thursday with a 7-5, 2-6, 7-5 victory over Tyler Click and Scott Schuler of the Mississinewa Indians.

“They thought right off the bat they were more comfortable there after playing together there last year,” said Weaver of the plan to keep the pair together. “By playing the doubles and using the experience they had they sure hoped they would have the opportunity to go further in the tournament.”

Now at 18-4, they have realized that opportunity. Although it wasn’t easy.

After winning the first set, the Patriots dropped the second and trailed 5-3 in the third — one game away from going home for the season.

Evans and Rigby were not about to go down without a fight, breaking Click’s serve to stay alive and then evening the score on Rigby’s serve. They took what was clearly the deciding game, scoring a second straight service break in a 22-point 11th game.

After that it was all Patriots as Evans served the final game at love for the victory.

“We thought about how the season would be over (if we lost),” said Evans, who admittedly could not hide a wide smile after the match. “We wanted to keep playing.”

“We just had to get it in the green and let them make the mistakes,” added Rigby.

The strategy to just get it back in the court was never more obvious than in the marathon 11th game of the third set.

With the Indians at game-point for a chance to go up 6-5, Click went for an overhead slam. But, the Patriot pair returned it and the pattern began.

Mississinewa hit slam after slam, but Evans and Rigby camped back at the fence and returned every one of them. Finally, Click volleyed into the net, putting the game back at deuce.

The Indians had three more game-point tries in a row, but failed on all six of their attempts to win the 11th game. Instead, the Patriots converted their third break-point chance to take the 6-5 lead.

Jay County was clearly in control after that, as Click and Schuler (17-5) failed to return any of Evans’ serves in the 12th and final game of the match.

“It took a while to get the jitters out, but I thought they played well overall,” said Mississinewa coach Bruce Fleming of his Indians. “There weren’t a lot of unforced errors.

“We’ve got to give a lot of credit to (Jay County). Our boys played well and we made them step it up in order to beat us.”

With the victory, Evans and Rigby will play the winner from the West Lafayette tournament in the doubles regional, which will be played at Indianapolis North Central Saturday, Oct. 16 — the same day as the team state finals. There is no semi-state in the individual doubles tournament, so the pair is now in the sweet 16 and two victories away from the state final four.

It is the deepest tournament run for any Jay County players since 1985.

Evans and Rigby got off to their typical slow start in each of the three sets, trailing 4-2 in all of them.

The duo won five of the final six games of the first set, breaking Schuler twice as they took the victory. The second set was tied at 2-2 before the Patriots lost four straight games as Mississinewa forced the third set.

“That’s been one of the things they’ve done a lot throughout the year,” said Weaver. “They don’t start off real strong. The first set they got down 3-1, 4-2 and managed to weather the storm and then start hitting some good shots.

“In the second set I thought we pretty much got away from what we were doing as far as preparation. When they had a chance to set up to get a good, hard ground stroke they weren’t getting in position.

“In the third set we got down to the bitter end when it was 5-3 and they had to dig in and make some good shots, and they did. They did what they had to do to prepare and get the shots put away ...”[[In-content Ad]]