Jay rebounds vs. Starfires (09/07/06)

The Patriots weren't going to stay down for long.

Coach Barry Weaver saw his team respond from adversity for the first time Wednesday. After taking its first loss a week ago, the Jay County boys tennis team got back on the winning side with a 4-1 victory over the visiting South Adams Starfires.

"Overall we played solid tennis," said Weaver, who got solid straight-set wins from all three singles spots. "Our guys I thought concentrated on some things that we've been talking about in practice that we need to work on - a lot of volleying and hopefully some good serves. That's where we're at. We need to fine-tune some of that stuff."

Josh Ludy made quick work of Cory Sprunger at No. 1 singles to improve to 7-2 on the year. He dominated with his serve and took advantage of errors for a quick 6-0, 6-0 victory.

At No. 3 singles Kyle Simmons pushed above .500 at 5-4 as he nearly matched Ludy's score. After cruising through the first set against Chase Ingle, he dropped the first game of the second before winning six more in a row for a 6-0, 6-1 win.

Phil Powell (6-3) gave up a few more games in his No. 2 singles match, but was equally in control. Up 5-2 in the second set, he dropped the opening point of the eighth game on his serve before winning the next four points in a row. He finished his 6-3, 6-2 win over Brett Wagner with a backhand winner.

"Josh hit a lot of volleys tonight, which is one of the things that I feel like he has to work on the play at the level that a lot of No. 1s play," said Weaver.

"Kyle got around the court real well. Phil did a real nice job of mixing things up."

The No. 2 doubles pair of Mark Alberson and Adam Horn gave Jay County its fourth point, finishing off sets when the pressure was on. The pair had 5-4 leads in both sets and took the 10th game of each - Alberson hit winners to end both - for their 6-4, 6-4 victory.

The victory improved the Patriots to 5-1 on the year and put them halfway to a third straight double-digit win season. They play four more times this week - versus Bluffton today at the Olympic Athletic Conference tournament Saturday - and have nine regular-season matches left in all.

"With graduation from last year I thought we would have some real questions marks," said Weaver, whose 2005 squad set a school record with 12 wins. "We had a couple of kids come out that hadn't played before that are pretty good athletes. That's made a huge difference.

"In the first four matches we had a different winning combination in every match.

"I'm real pleased to be at 5-1 at this point ... There's no reason over the next seven days that we can't win almost all of these. ... I think if we play well we can win every one of these matches."

The Patriots' only loss Wednesday came at No. 1 doubles, where a comeback try by Heath Rigby and Thomas McCowan fell short.

The duo fell 6-2 in the opening set and trailed 4-1 in the second before getting back on track. They won four straight games to re-take the second-set lead only to fall 7-4 in the tiebreaker.

Junior varsity

Michael Daniels turned in a shutout as Jay County won all three matches over the Starfires.

Daniels defeated Ben Dobler 8-0 at No. 2 singles. In the No. 1 singles match it was Jared Valentine 8-6 over Kevin Schmidt, and at No. 3 singles Hadmar Senk defeated Schmidt 8-2.[[In-content Ad]]