No. 1s win, but Patriots fall to Norwell (08/20/04)

OSSIAN — The No. 1s lost just three games all night. But the rest of the squad couldn’t quite come up with enough for the victory.

Kurtis Hess and the team of Tyler Rigby and Randy Evans each rolled to 2-0 on the season Thursday only to have the Jay County tennis team fall by a 3-2 score to the Norwell Knights.

“We’re all right,” said Patriot coach Barry Weaver. “We’ve just got to find some points. I think we’re getting better.”

Jay County’s best chance at pulling off a victory was at No. 2 doubles, where Travis Smith and Adam Arnold went up 5-2 in the first set. However, the lead disappeared in a flash as Brian Nahrwald and Justin Koch won four consecutive games, the final one at love.

Smith and Arnold managed to stop the streak to force a tiebreaker, but again went cold. After grabbing a 3-2 lead on an Arnold volley, the Patriot pair lost the next five points in a row, with all but one coming on unforced errors.

Jay County went up 3-2 in the second set before hitting another drought and dropping three straight games to trail 5-3. It fought hard, denying a trio of Norwell match points to win three games and reclaim a 6-5 advantage.

However, the Knights won the 12th game to force a second tiebreaker, and again came out on top.

Smith and Arnold dropped the first two points of the tiebreaker and never led, falling to a 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-4) defeat on a slam by Nahrwald.

“I really thought when they got back from down 3-5 in the second set it would get the momentum going,” said Weaver, noting how close the duo was tied sending the match to a third set. “I think they got tight, anxious.

“Hopefully after a few times they’ll understand they have to relax in those situations.”

The No. 2 doubles pair was in position to try to give the Patriots a victory thanks to Hess, Rigby and Evans.

Hess completely shut down Michael Huffman at No. 1 singles, although it took him a while to end the first set.

Up 5-0, Hess didn’t finish off the first-set shutout until the final game had gone to deuce five times.

But, he continued to dominate and played some top-notch tennis in the final few games of his 6-0, 6-0 victory.

At No. 1 doubles, Rigby and Evans dropped a pair of first-set games for the second straight match, but were still never challenged. Evans ended the first set with an excellent cross-court winner, and the pair defeated Blake Gehring and Dirk Troxel 6-2, 6-1.

“Kurt finally got it going in the last three or four games,” said Weaver. “He just wasn’t getting ready to build for the rest of the season. Then he decided to move his feet and get his backhand going and he was playing pretty strongly.

“The No. 1 doubles pair is doing pretty well. Overall they’re playing solid tennis.”

Jay County dropped the remaining singles matches.

Senior Jeff Sims won his first three games against David Brege, but couldn’t hold on. He won just two the rest of the way in a 7-5, 6-0 defeat.

Freshman Joshua Ludy saw his first varsity action at No. 3 singles where Blake Feichter handed him a 6-1, 6-2 loss.

The Patriots play again Saturday in the DeKalb Invitational at 9 a.m.

Junior varsity

Jay County also lost to Norwell 3-0 in Thursday’s junior varsity action.

Todd McCowan put up a great fight against Lucas Gerber, but fell 9-8 (8-6) in a tiebreaker at No. 1 singles. In the other singles matches Thomas McCowan lost to Matt Graft and James Hear fell to Chandler Gerber by matching 8-3 scores.

In exhibition matches Heare and Ryan Sutton dropped an 8-3 decision to Chandler Gerber and Justin Knapske, and Jason Crouch and Matthias Scherer lost to Lucas Gerber and Matt Graft 5-1.[[In-content Ad]]