Contributor, Blake Ellis
Senior, Scotland High School
Scotland High School’s tennis team was slaughtered by Lumberton Senior High School in the first home match of the season on Tuesday. Scotland’s number one, Robert Beacham was the only victor in the series of singles matches. The Pirates proved to be a huge learning experience for the team, and hopefully the Scot’s Tennis team will perform better next week against another opponent.
Robert Beacham won his first set seven to five and then lost his second. After a long, nail-biting tie-breaker, Robert emerged victorious (eight to six) over Alex Dent, a Senior at Lumberton High School. The rest of the team wasn’t so lucky in their singles matches. Freshman, Shane Dubbs ran out of gas as he lost to Jacob Risen seven to five and six to zero. Senior, Christian Kang was incapable of winning a single game during his match against Drew Bellinjer six to zero and six to zero. Daniel Smith, a Junior at Scotland High, was able to snag one set of his match against Dominic Dent, seven to five, but he ran out of gas in his second and third sets losing six to three and six to ten. Freshman, Trey Armstrong had to play Thomas Bailey, who is a “grunter” as they call them in tennis, Trey lost six to two in his first set and then six to zero in his second. Senior, Heydon Ward played Aujay Jhale, a Senior from Lumberton High School. Rocking his vintage aviators, Heydon seemed a little antsy in his first set losing six to one, after a small break Heydon readjusted and only lost six to four in his second set. “Yeah, overall it was a learning experience for most of the team. We’ve got a lot of work to do if we even want to stand a chance at the end of the season at conference. Although we lost big today, I think we’ll be able to recuperate and do well in our next match,” said Freshman Trey Armstrong concerning the tennis team’s loss on Tuesday afternoon.
Sadly the doubles matches were uglier than the singles. Beacham and Dubbs lost five to eight to Alex Dent and Drew Bellinjer. In the middle of this match Robert accidentally nailed Bellinjer in the face and burst his opponents nose wide open. The audience was in awe as the athletic trainers and coaches poured onto the courts to stop the bleeding. After the bleeding was controlled they were able to resume the match and eventually finish. Due to abnormal bleeding Daniel Smith was unable to play in his doubles match, so Christian Kang and Trey Armstrong were paired up against Jacob Risen and Dominic Dent from Lumberton. Christian and Trey lost eight to two. In an ugly showdown Heydon Ward and Adam Wood could not maintain their serves, ultimately resulting in an eight to zero loss for Heydon and Adam.
“All around we just weren’t prepared. I guess we just got a little too big for our britches,” said David Vandenburg, “ yeah we had a big win at Hoke last week, but that doesn’t mean that we can come out here and goof off at practice. We’ve got to make improvements everyday.”
“Yeah, we sucked,” said Daniel Smith. “We’ve all got room for improvements, we just have to put forth the initiative to get it done.”
Tennis will play next week, listen to the announcements for times.
Scotland Bagpipe 