PLYMOUTH – It was a long frustrating night for Plymouth’s tennis team as they battled point after point only to fall to Northridge in NLC action by a final of 3-2.
“They say a season is a journey and we are on an absolute expedition,” said Plymouth coach Michael Delp. “Every single match the other night at Concord was a three set match to win the match. The last two matches we’ve had match points to win – Andy (Rostron) had one the other night at Goshen, and two doubles had two the other night. Our hope is that will pay off in the end.”
“We battle we fight hard,” said Deep. “A lot of times we’re overmatched but I love our kids the way they fight and claw for everything they’ve got. In previous years we’ve overcome that this year we aren’t quite there but we’ll keep pushing through.”
The doubles teams of Clay Hilliard and Adam Hunter, as well as Shawn Frantz and Grant Houin took wins, with the match coming down to a singles match win for the Pilgrims.
Tommy Holloway recovered from a first set set back to rally for a second set win with Simon Grevengoed but couldn’t hold the Northridge number one player off falling in set three.
Andy Rostron at number three for the Pilgrims had the battle of the night that ended up in the spotlight. Rostron fell in the first set in a tie breaker, took the second 9-7 and then fell in the final set to Cooper Tarernier, long after the others were finished.
“The uniqueness of tennis is you have five individual matches and you never know which one is going to have the ultimate spotlight,” said Delp. “Andy was playing lights out early in the year and two doubles was struggling. Now two doubles is fine and Andy is having some tough times and Andy played fine tonight he just couldn’t get a break to go his way. Tommy (Holloway) was struggling earlier this year not playing at all the way he is now. The kid tonight (Grevengoed) is a number two seed and almost beat the one seed in our conference and Tommy takes him to the limit.”
“We have to get three courts to win,” said Delp. “Maybe the hole from the summer is that we maybe didn’t see enough match time. We have a lot of three sport athletes and they don’t get a lot of time as far as playing matches. Even tonight some of their players were very polished and maybe that gap is bigger than we realize. We’ll just have to keep fighting and get through it.”
Plymouth is now 5-9 on the season and 2-5 in NLC play.
Scoring:
Singles
No. 1 – Simon Grevengoed defeated Tommy Holloway 5-7, 6-3, 6-4.
No. 2 – Game Radino defeated Mitch Rose 6-3, 6-4.
No. 3 – Cooper Tavernier defeated Andy Rostron 6-4 (7-6), 9-7, 7-6.
Doubles
No. 1 – Clay Hilliard/Adam Hunter defeated Logan Corns/Eric Furstenberger 6-2, 6-1.
No. 2 – Shaun Frantz/Grant Houin defeated Connor Glenn/Avery Mantyla 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
