Creswell High School’s tennis team showed improving skill and toughness in three matches this past week.
April 22, Creswell’s boys’ and girls’ tennis teams played well against Springfield. In boys’ singles action, Ethan Stephens lost 5-7, 6-4, (5-10); Chance Leach won 6-1, 6-0; Sky Leach won 6-2, 7-5; and Evan Stephens lost 5-7, 4-6.
In boys’ doubles, Sky Leach and Luke Vaughn lost 7-8 (8-10).
In girls’ singles, Brooklyn Grubbs lost 1-6, 1-6; Amanda O’Reilly lost 4-6, 2-6; Carley Wilkerson won 6-3, 4-6 (10-8); and Tara Keepers lost 3-6, 2-6.
In girls’ doubles, Kylee Whitson and Emme Whitson won 8-4 and Makaela Seiber and Jillian Greenfield won 8-3.
”We’ve gotten a little better since the first time we played them,” said Creswell Head Coach Tyler Hollingsworth. ”There were a lot of close games, and the tight ones could’ve gone either way.”
The girls also hosted Marist on April 25. In singles matches, Emme Whitson lost 0-6, 1-6; Grubbs lost 2-6, 1-6; and O’Reilly lost 0-6, 0-6. In doubles, Emme and Kylee Whitson lost 1-6, 1-6; Grubbs and O’Reilly lost 1-6, 0-6; Seiber and Wilkerson lost 2-6, 0-6; and Keepers and Virginia Laird lost 1-6, 1-6.
”This was a very tough matchup for us; they’re very good,” Hollingsworth said. ”But while the scores didn’t reflect it, I was actually really happy with how we played. We were really doing some very good rallies.”
April 26, the boys traveled to Willamette. In the No. 1 singles matchup, Chance Leach lost 3-6, 3-6.
Following that match, Sky Leach ultimately won 7-6 (7-2), 6-7 (4-7), 10-6 in a closely contested contest. ”That match took two hours and 20 minutes to play; every rally had like 15 shots,” Hollingsworth said. ”Sky was exhausted.”
Evan Stephens lost 2-6, 6-0 (6-10) and Kizmo Chamnannarongsak lost 0-6, 1-6.
In doubles, Ethan Stephens and Chance Leach lost 6-7 (4-7), 6-7 (5-7) and Chamnannarongsak and Vaughn lost 1-6, 1-6.
”They’re more experienced depth-wise than we are, but overall there were a lot of even matches,” Hollingsworth said. ”Ethan, Chance, Sky and Evan’s matches were all really tight; unfortunately, anything can happen when you have to play those tiebreakers.”
This week, the boys travel to Marist and Creswell plays host to Hidden Valley for the team’s final matches before district events.
Marist will again be challenging, but ”we know nothing about Hidden Valley except that they have 17 girls and five boys – so all but one of our nine girls will have to double up,” Hollingsworth said.
