Comet girls fall in tennis title match

The top-seed Halifax County High School girls tennis team fell to Bassett 5-4 Monday in South Boston in a fiercely contested match for the Piedmont District tournament championship.

Halifax (14-4) won the regular season championship with a 10-0 district record. In the title match the girls came up one game short, needing to win all three doubles matches after falling behind in singles 2-4.

The Comets won both of its regular season matches over the Bengals delivering the 9-0 home shutout, while besting Bassett on the road 6-3.

“It took them five hours to do it, but the Bassett girls pushed thru to squeak by us in a heartbreaking loss for the Piedmont District Tournament championship.” coach Donna Hudson said. “We came into this tournament undefeated in the District, but we know the strength of that team and knew we would be in for a battle in this match. We had to take an hour break during singles for courts to dry, but for the rest of the evening there was fierce tennis on every court, every minute from 4-10 p.m.”

In tournaments, teams play a best of two out of three sets format. If a court splits sets they use a 10-point tiebreaker game to determine the match winner.

The Comets had splits on four courts with two additional 7-point tiebreakers required to decide set winners when there was a 6-6 tie. The Comets were 3-3 in tiebreakers.

“We expect fierce competition at the top of the ladder, but most teams can’t hang with our no. 5 (Meredith Duffer) and our no. 6 (Kendall Crowder), so we always count on wins there, but last night we lost at the no. 1 (Christina Bruce), the no. 2 (Myah Forest), the no. 4 (Francesca Potenza), and somehow they took away our trump card and we also lost at the no. 6.

“The bright spots in our singles were wins at the three court of Abby Baisch, and on the five court of Meredith Duffer.” Abby won her first set 6-1 and finished with a 6-4 win.

“At the five court, Meredith had more of a competition on her hands than she has seen in quite a while. Meredith is 13-3 for the season, with the majority of those being 8-0 or 8-1. She has used those to fine tune her attacks though, and she stayed on the offense to win the first set here 6-4.” A 4-6 loss led to a 10-point tiebreaker which Duffer won 11-9.

Going into the doubles the Comets knew they needed all three games to be tournament champions.

On court one Bruce/Forest dominated their match using some left over frustrations from the singles play to catalyst the win. Scores in the games were 6-3 and 6-1. Duffer and Crowder on court three won with one game needed to win the title. On court two Baisch/Potenza dropped their first set 3-6.

“It was almost 9 p.m. when the two doubles (Baisch and Potenza) started their second set in the pressure-packed, must-win atmosphere, and they got centerstage to themselves as the other doubles pretty quickly finished up,” Hudson said. “Their second set was a battle of nerves, with aggressive net play from both sides, and with stellar serving from both our girls. They lost the first game, pushed thru to a 2-2 tie, lost another game, pushed thru to a 3-3 tie, lost another game, then repeated that pattern, never able to get ahead, to a 6-6 tie. That forced a 7-point tie breaker to determine the second set winner, and if we won and it split the sets, the next thing would be a 10 point tie breaker to decide the winner of the two doubles.

“Abby and Francesca took to the offense in the first tie breaker, and dominated the net play there. They jumped ahead, tied once, but then pressed on and never looked back, winning that 7-3 for the opportunity to now play a 10 point tie breaker for the match. That match decider was fierce.” Bassett took an early lead and though the Comets battled they fell 4-10.

“Our girls played excellent tennis against an excellent team, and although it hurt to lose, we know it was a great night of tennis. We’ll learn from it, and get ready for Regional competition next week.

“We start first round regionals at home on Monday May 22, and are looking forward to taking a deep breath and enjoying good practices for the rest of the week before meeting some teams we haven’t played before.”