XENIA — Wednesday’s Sept. 12 girls high school tennis team match between Greeneview and host Xenia would appear to be a lopsided 5-0 win for the visiting Rams in the scorebooks, but both coaches felt pretty good about their respective teams after a well played match on the beautiful new Greene County Fairgrounds courts.
Dave Scott, filling in for Xenia coach/wife Kay Scott who was recuperating from a recent surgery, said his inexperienced Buccaneers bunch has improved tremendously since the season started.
“We have a very young team. Out of our 14 girls, only four of them played last year. The rest started playing in June,” Scott said. “So they’ve come a long way since they first picked up rackets in June.”
Rams talented freshman Zoe Sears claimed a first singles win over Xenia senior Alexis McClelland, 6-3, 6-1. Junior Tori Chaney battled Xenia senior Jaedan Thomas to a close 6-4, 7-6 win at second singles. Then, Rams senior Brooklyn Biggs claimed a 6-1, 6-0 win at third singles over Bucs’ sophomore Autumn McCray.
At first doubles, Greeneview’s senior Gracie Lucas and junior Marinda Shoemaker earned a 6-0, 6-4 win over Xenia juniors Anna Carlson and Ally Baker.
After trailing 5-4 in the opening set, Greeneview’s second doubles tandem of freshman Brilea Bishop and sophomore Carli Vipperman rallied to claim a 7-6, 6-2 win over Xenia’s freshman-junior duo of Leah Pagett and Allison Shaw.
Greeneview coach Jami Sears was understandably happy with the match result. She said the team’s performance thus far has given her reason to be happy as well.
“This is the best season I’ve had yet, in the four years that I’ve been coaching here,” Sears said. “We’re 3-and-0 in the Ohio Heritage Conference, and we’re 9-4 overall. I’m really proud of these girls and how hard they’ve played. … I think it’s because we got a lot of student-athletes to come out and play from other sports. There’s basketball players, soccer players … I honestly didn’t know what to expect this season, because we lost a lot of seniors from last year’s team. But these girls have shown a lot of athleticism, and they’ve improved a lot this season already. It’s been a really nice surprise.”
Xenia (3-7) will be back on the Fairgrounds tennis courts at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 13, when they’ll host Greater Western Ohio Conference, American South division foe Trotwood-Madison.
Greeneview gets the rest of the week to rest up. They’ll then play four non-league games in four days. The Rams will host Stivers on Monday, Sept. 17 at Seaman Park in Jamestown, then they hit the road for respective Tuesday and Wednesday matches at Oakwood and Waynesville, before getting back to Seaman Park to host Carroll on Thursday, Sept. 20.
