Tennis wins home opener

The overall match was already in hand.

As the final match on the court, brothers Gavin and Sam Myers had a chance to make it a comfortable win or a close victory.

Unable to claim the second set — they had already taken the first — it came down to a third.

Although much longer than they would have hoped, the brothers left no doubt as to who was the better tandem on the court.

Gavin, the senior, made a running cross-court shot to seal final set and give the Jay County High School boys tennis team a 4-1 victory over the Alexandria-Monroe Tigers in the Patriots’ home opener Tuesday.

“First win. We needed it too,” said JCHS coach Donald Gillespie, whose team dropped both matches in the New Castle Trojan Kickoff Duals on Saturday just three days after adding it to the schedule. “We need to play; we’ve been playing each other and it doesn’t help just playing each other.

“We needed a confidence builder and we were able to get that.”

It’s the first win for the Patriots against the Tigers in six tries.

Jay County (1-2), which plays host to the Norwell Knights on Thursday, already had wins in all three of its singles matches. The No. 2 doubles team had lost and was off the court, so all that remained was the Myers brothers and their opponents, Aaron Matthews and Tanner Norris.

The Patriot brothers won the first set 6-3 after having a 5-0 advantage, and they were a game from putting the match away in the second set but were unable to do so. Their 5-4 lead turned into a 6-5 deficit. They won Gavin’s serve to force a tiebreaker. The Myerses never had more than a one-point lead at 3-2. Two errors and an Alexandria ace quickly made it 5-3 and the Patriots never recovered, dropping the tiebreaker 9-7.

The teams then decided on a 10-point tiebreaker to decide the match rather than playing a full third set. An attack error gave the opening point to the Patriots, and they never trailed again, claiming the tiebreaker 10-2.

“Talked at the fence going into the third set … I said prove your point,” Gillespie said. “They were better than that team tonight. You start playing to the level of the opponent and that’s what gets you in trouble and I thought that’s what we did in the second set; got a little bit tentative.”

When asked following the match what happened, Gavin was unable to find the right words. Late in the second set, both he and Sam — a sophomore — opted to hit return shots directly at Matthews and Norris rather than finding open spots on the court.

And a lot of their attacks were off the mark, too.

“Shots were going either 10 foot out or the bottom of the net,” Gillespie said. “You can’t do that.”

Crosby Heniser and Simon Dirksen cruised to their victories at No. 1 and No. 3 singles, respectively.

Heniser, a senior, overpowered James Ward to a 6-1, 6-1 win. Ward seemingly wasn’t able to match Heniser’s aggressiveness, and spent most of his time behind the baseline in an attempt to return Heniser’s attacks.

“Crosby took care of business real quick,” Gillespie said, noting Alexandria-Monroe was also in attendance at New Castle on Saturday although the teams did not play each other. “He knew going in he was going to try to stay inside the baseline and being on the attack most of the time and I think he did a good job of that tonight.”

Simon Dirksen, a junior, defeated Corbin Meeks by a 6-1, 6-0 margin.

“Simon is Simon,” Gillespie said. “He is very consistent; hits a nice, flat ball so if you want to dink and dunk, he’ll dink and dunk. If you want to hit hard, he’ll hit hard. You better come out ready to play because he’s going to run everything down.”

Abraham Dirksen, a sophomore, defeated Benjamin DeVault in straight sets, but not as handily as his other singles teammates. Similar to his doubles teammates, he had a 5-4 lead in the set two after winning the first and was unable to put it away. However, he claimed the tiebreaker for a 6-4, 7-6 (7-4) win.

Jay County had its third different No. 2 doubles team in as many matches, and they were responsible for the team’s only setback of the evening.

Austin Dirksen and Gage Sims fell to Jackson Kettery and Jesse Lipps 6-4, 6-0.

“I’m still experimenting,” Gillespie said. “Until I feel comfortable in practice where these kids are concentrating, doing the things we’re supposed to be doing, I’ll (settle) on a team.

“There are so many real close and there’s not a whole lot of experience there. Someone will jump up and two of them will get that spot.”