The Covenant Tennis teams went on the road this past weekend for 2 conference matches and were successful in winning both.
The first match was against Milligan College where the men handled there opponents easily winning 8-1. The women started out with a nice lead by winning all three doubles matches to go up 3-0.
The number one doubles team(Julia Myers and Catie Ramage) had to come from behind to win 9-7 and the number 2 doubles team (Casey Cochran and Janie Sizemore) were barely able to hang on with a win in a tiebreaker 9-8.
The singles matches got off to a decent start with Casey winning at #2 but Julia Myers lost at #1 and Catie Ramage ended up losing a close one 11-9 in a super tie-breaker bringing the overall match score to 4-2 with 3 matches to play. Jane Shibley continued her solid play at #5 winning easily and giving the team the final point to win with 2 matches still in play. Janie Sizemore lost a close one at #4 and then Stephanie Sizemore lost her match in a super tie breaker to bring the final match score to 5-4 and the women's record to 10-2.
Saturday's match against King was much of the same for the women - winning 7-2. The Covenant team swept all 3 doubles to start out 3-0 and then followed that with some solid singles play starting with #1 Julia Myers winning a close 2 setter, #2 Casey Cochran a close 3 setter and #3 Catie Ramage a close 3 setter. After that #4 Janie Sizemore lost as well as #5 Jane Shibley (only her 3rd loss of the season) and then at #6 Chelsey Schortmann won easily to give the final score of 7-2.
The women are now 11-2 and look to take on #1 Union next on Wednesday.
The men's match against rival King College was not as easy as the women's, but the team was able to pull out a very exciting 5-4 victory.
The match started out with 3 tough doubles matches and Covenant lost at #3 first. At #2, the freshmen team of
John Hirte and
Ryan Bernardez played an amazing match and won 8-6 to make the match score 1-1 with a crucial point still out there at number one doubles.
Josh Jeremiah and
Garrett Reid found themselves in a hole down 5-7 and receiving but managed to break and then hold to go 7-7 and from there they held on to win 9-7.
Singles play started with Covenant looking strong, Josh was winning easily at #1, Garrett was up a set at #2 and John was up a set at #3 but then some momentum changed. Josh went on to win giving Covenant a 3-1 lead but Garrett and John both dropped the second sets.
Ryan Bernardez went on at #4 and got out to a slow start losing the first set quickly but Freshman
John Hirte was able to grind it out and win the 3rd set 6-4 giving Covenant a 4-1 lead. Garrett and Ryan lost their matches however, so the score quickly became 4-3 with the Herberich brothers, Freshman Jonny and Senior Adam still to play. Adam continued his stellar senior performance winning his match in straight sets and giving Covenant the final point to clinch the match 5-3. Jonny continued to battle and ended up dropping a tough super tie breaker 13-11 for the final match score of 5-4. The men improve to 9-5 and will face #1 Union on Wednesday.
