A 5-2 loss to Grand Junction Central isn’t anything to jump up and down about, but it’s progress for the Durango High School girls tennis team.
The Demons fell in their first home match Friday after opening with four consecutive road trips.
“Traditionally, it’s hard for us to play at home. There’s the distraction of school all day, you come out, then you’ve got stuff going on next door (at the baseball fields),” DHS head coach Dave Weisfeldt said. “The ability to focus is something I think that sometimes we struggle with. We had some positions where we would have liked to see some improvement.”
DHS had to shuffle its lineup once again and reintegrate players returning from injury and other absences.
Emma Hagen shined after moving from the No. 1 doubles team to the No. 3 singles position. She beat Erin McCloskey 6-1, 6-0 in her first varsity singles match ever.
“I just had to think about what I was doing instead of being distracted by what she was doing,” said Hagen, daughter of Carolyn and Dave Hagen. “I had to think about how to play tennis, which happens a lot.”
Central’s Abby Bridgett overcame a first-set loss to beat Maggie Hackett 6-7, 6-3, 10-4 at No. 2 singles.
Hackett won the first set in a tiebreak, then couldn’t keep up with Bridgett’s adjustments in the second set and decisive tiebreak after they split the two sets.
“The middle of the second set, Maggie struggled with the change in her opponent’s game and being able to adapt on the fly,” Weisfeldt said. “She was never able to regain the momentum.”
Meredith Nass lost 6-3, 6-0 to Keira Trujillo at No. 1 singles.
Some of those struggles continued through the first three doubles matches, too.
Audrey Morris and Jenny Snowberger lost 6-2, 6-1 to Elli Driscoll and Leandra Merano at No. 1 doubles; Ellie Gervais and Hailee Pritchard fell 6-2, 6-1 to Charis Nordstrom and Jade Poeppel at No. 2 doubles; and Rachel Cooper and Jenna Engelken lost 6-4, 6-2 to Kalea Borrego and Amber Jack at No. 3 doubles.
The Demons’ No. 4 doubles team of Ali and Sydney Carey were playing their first-ever varsity match at No. 4 doubles against Brittany Updike and Currey Ventling.
It didn’t phase the twins.
They won 6-2, 7-5 and held off a late Central rally in the second set to avoid a tiebreaker.
“We were really good at communicating with each other,” said Sydney Carey, daughter of Lorri and Mike Carey. “We knew whenever the other one was going to get it.”
The two position wins were the most of the year for the Demons, who constantly have been juggling their lineup because of injuries and other scheduling conflicts.
The Demons will play their second home match of the season at 10 a.m. Saturday at DHS against Montrose.
“We should match up real nicely against them. We expect, probably, to put more wins on the board. The danger with Montrose is sometimes broken play,” Weisfeldt said. “If we get caught playing their game, that’s trouble for us. We need to focus on playing to our level, not reacting to them.”
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
