Aug 24, 2017

Southwest Cowgirls travel to The Lady Bison of High Point Central in non-conference tennis action

Having just beaten the Lady Bison last week, the Cowgirls were in good position to repeat…..and then we saw the line-up.

The Lady Bison 1 and 2 had swapped positions.  #3 was out, #4 to 3, 6 to 4, 5 remained and a new face at #6.  No matter what people tell you, no one likes change.

#5 Lanie Van Dorp was off the courts first having repeated her performance from last meet holding her opponent to the same 3 games.  Gretchen Cross (#6) followed suit soon thereafter limiting her opponent to only 2 games.  Solid performance by both Cowgirls.

Kyra, #2 seed, tweaked her arm v Ragsdale on Tuesday.  Allowing her to rest today put Sam Hamrick at #2 and in turn, shifted the rest of the line-up.  Yes, I like the ladies to have a challenge.  Unfortunately, as Jack Reacher says, “no plan survives the first encounter with the enemy.”  During the last hit of warm up, Sam’s strings popped – effectively leaving her without her trusty weapon to wage war against her Lady Bison opponent.  Uniquely balanced to her wrist, none of the other girls had a racquet with the same balance, but she had one to play with for today.  The current racquet was heavier and slower than her previous tool.  To compound this, Sam faced the previous #1 on court 2.  The Lady Bison had an excellent serve and deep, punishing shots.  It took same the better part of 6 games to get used to the new racquet, but the change did come.  Down 0-7, Sam held serve.  1-7.  Sam, swinging well once more, broke her opponent.  2-7.  With killer side line action, Sam held serve once more.  3-7.  The Lady Bison serving now, Sam battled her to deuce.  Ad-in.  And a small hiccup on Sam’s last shot it gave the match to the Bison.  No excuses given, but I would have loved to see this match with the right racquet in Sam’s hand.

With the Cowboys lead reduced to 2-1, attention turned to the last three courts.

Mai Vo, celebrated her birthday today.  And on this special day, a decisive win.  8-3.  The Lady Bison may have upped her game and taken the #1 spot, but her game didn’t have enough to survive the birthday girl.

3-1 Cowgirls.

Now on Courts 3 and 4, though playing up, Meghan and Katelyn were both playing different players.  Meghan hit her corners and with her approaches to the forehand side, delivered great crosscourt shots.  Her opponent was tenacious and kept the ball in play when she could get to it.  A few over hits from Meghan and solid baseline play from both sides, Meghan finally prevailed 8-5.

Meghan’s courtmate Katelyn had the great distinction of pulling a lefty in match play.  Now are lefties hard to play?  No, but everything is mirrored opposite.  Forehand becomes backhand and backhand forehand.  Now Katelyn has a very consistent down the line on the deuce side.  Unfortunately, this placed the shot right in the shot of strength from her opponent.  This match became a game of attrition.  Who could hit the more consistent shots while still running their opponent in the ground.  The Lady Bison was an athlete and ran hard.  Katelyn turned it up at 4-3, moving her feet and hitting a bit deeper and more angled shots.  This was enough to hold serve and eventually break her opponent at 7-6 to give Katelyn the win.

Singles: 5-1 Cowgirls.

To the Lady Bison’s credit, they shifted and played us entirely different from the first time.  First year coach Ben Free should be very proud of his ladies.

Dubs:

Sitting Kyra out for dubs to rest her arm, Lanie joined Mai on court 1, Sam and Meghan court 2, and feeling energized, the duo of Gretchen/Katelyn court 3.

Having won the match, the pressure was off.  Katelyn and Gretchen seemed to have the most fun of dubs play as evidenced by their great communication, aggressive play (I know, from these two, quite aggressive play), and shot selection.  The Cowgirls walked off of court with an 8-3 win.

Vo and Van Dorp exited next.  With no evident deficiency in play, Lanie was hard charging at the net and Mai, an invaluable wall at the backcourt, but it wasn’t quite enough to dethrone the 1/2 of the Lady Bison.  As chatted with the Cowgirls in post-game debrief, there was no smoking gun, we were just outplayed.

Hamrick/Whalen came off of the courts last.  Still wielding the new to her racquet, Sam and Meghan pushed hard to the net, but were outpaced with deft lobs over their heads and hitting good inside the lines.  Forced to fall back in tandem, the Lady Bison also adopted this stance and the next 6 games were played from the baseline.  Though not preferred, the Cowgirls waited the Bison out and mounted their charge once more staggered (one @ net, one baseline).  This time they hit pay dirt.  Tired from the match, the Bison no longer could lift their lobs as effectively, letting them drop just in front of the service line, giving the Cowgirls room to place the shot down and away and opening the door for the Bison to overhit in response.  This they did several times, securing the lead and edging away in their 8-3 win.

Dubs: 2-1 Cowboys

Cowboys win the match 7-2 over the Lady Bison.

Singles:

Mai Vo (SW) over Grace Sedberry (HPC) 8-3

Anna Eskew (HPC) over Sam Hamrick (SW) 8-3

Meghan Whalen (SW) over Ginny Cross (HPC) 8-5

Katelyn Leinbach (SW) over Alex Moore (HPC) 8-6

Lanie Van Dorp (SW) over Anna Yarborough (HPC) 8-3

Gretchen Cross (SW) over M Whittman (HPC) 8-2

Dubs:

Sedberry/Eskew (HPC) over Vo/Van Dorp (SW) 8-6

Hamrick/Whalen (SW) over Moore/Yarborough (HPC) 8-3

Leinbach/Cross (SW) over Cross/Fisher (HPC) 8-3

7-2 Cowgirls

The Bison drop to 2-4 on the season.

The Cowgirls remain undefeated at 6-0, 1-0 in the conference and will host Conference rivals Mount Tabor on Monday.