Tennis beats Nevada in dual

Monday, March 30, 2009
Fort Scott's Brian Gorman chases down a shot during his No. 2 singles match at the FSHS courts Monday. Although Gorman lost this match, the Tigers defeated Nevada, 6 duals to 3, in the first home event of the season for the Tiger tennis team. (Scott Nuzum/Tribune photo)

Fort Scott High School's tennis team defeated Nevada, 6-3, in a home dual Monday evening.

Although the Tigers lost in No. 1 singles and doubles and No. 2 singles, they showed the greater team depth as they won No. 3, 4, 5 and 6 singles and No. 2 and 3 doubles.

And to boot, they also won all three JV matches.

"I'm really happy with the result," Fort Scott head coach Lynn Barr said at the end of the night. "But this is also still a very young team."

It was a bit of a windy day at the courts, bit that didn't seem to affect play much at all. Clouds came along at the end but, otherwise, it was a good day to play some matches.

Down 2-0 after the first two matches, Gabe Quick got the Tigers on a roll with an 8-0 shutout of James Smith in No. 3 singles. Meanwhile, on the opposite court, Cody Harper downed Nevada's Jordan McCall, 8-5.

Then in No. 5 singles, Charlie Sercer beat Colton Hardy, 8-1, while Chris Lamb defeated Josh Lowry, 8-3, in the No. 6 match.

The two singles losses were very close matches. Nevada's Taylor Chapman needed a tie-breaker to beat Colton Grillot, 8-7 (7-4). And Nevada's Dominic Habjan avoided a tie-breaker by beating Brian Gorman, 8-6.

Doubles play started with Chapman and Habjan teaming up for an 8-6 win over Fort Scott's Quick and Grillot in No. 1 doubles. But on the east side of the court, Sercer and Lamb defeated Smith and Lowry, 8-6, in No. 2's. And at the city pool courts, Gorman paired up with Andrew Benage to beat McCall and Hardy in No. 3's.

Each of the Fort Scott players, except Sercer and Lamb, were playing their first varsity matches of the season. Sercer and Lamb were also the No. 2 doubles team in the season-opening tournament at Independence last week but played their first singles matches of the year.

In junior varsity action, Kohlton Dwyer beat Nevada's Doug Decocq, 6-2, and Dillon Pearl defeated Nevada's Matt Stiles in singles play. Carson Claypool and Jimmy Cox paired up to beat Decocq and Stiles in doubles.

The Tiger varsity will travel to Independence again for another tournament on Thursday afternoon. The next scheduled junior varsity event is at Parsons on April 13, although there could be matches added prior to that due to the number of players there are on the team this year.