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Tennis: Coppell controls close matches in win over Flower Mound
By Justin Thomas, jthomas@starlocalnews.com
Flower Mound's tennis team had a chance to make a statement in District 5-5A competition Tuesday when the Jaguars hosted Coppell with an opportunity to improve to 2-0.
Instead, it was Coppell who got the best of Flower Mound, moving into early position to control the district with a 15-4 victory.
"I know the score doesn't look like it, but I actually thought we played pretty well," said Brad Wikse, Flower Mound head coach. "I'm not discouraged by the results at all. It looks terrible, but we dropped a lot of close matches."
Flower Mound had a doubles match Wikse believed they could have won, lost three of the four matches that went to super-breakers and also lost a pair of girls singles matches, 6-4, 6-4.
Coppell, meanwhile, is looking to build on that success in close battles.
"It was a good match for us," said Jane Jackson, Coppell head coach. "We came out a little slow in the doubles, but I was glad to see us step up and pull out those close matches. We even had to come from behind in a couple of them, so it was a nice win."
Autusa Behroozi and Edwina Popa won in girls doubles over the Coppell tandem of Julianna Cauley and Logan Astudillo (8-4), as did the duo of Allie Polk and Maddie Todd (8-4) over Melissa Coburn and Maggie Stone, while the Cowgirls picked up a win from Lizzie Bell and Mira Shah (8-4).
Coppell returned the favor in doubles on the boys side, sweeping Flower Mound.
The Cowboys picked up wins from the teams of Zixiao Li and Kihwan Lee (8-3), Tyler Stayer and Jacob Villanueva (8-4) and Sid Bagaria and Kavi Shah (8-6). In mixed, Abby White and Josh Abaya defeated Flower Mound's Lily Choi and Thomas Radle.
"Josh and Abby have really been playing well in mixed," Jackson said. "And Zixiao and Kihwan got an awesome win. I was also really impressed with Tyley and Jacob. I know the score was 8-4, but the match was really a lot tighter than that and they had to fight hard to win."
Coppell also secured a sweep in boys singles.
Stayer topped Austin Todd (7-6, 6-2), Li swept Armand Behroozi (6-0, 6-1), Abaya held off Andrew Eurek (6-1, 7-6), Lee edged Aaron Johnson (6-0, 3-6, 10-5), Villanueva outlasted Cole Schafer (3-6, 7-6, 10-8) and Bagaria swept Noah Axelrod (6-1, 6-3).
"I think our boys were a little disappointed," Wikse said. "I looked at the scores the next day and realized we got swept. We had our chances in a few matches, we just couldn't get them to go our way. We were just off a bit. We were up 6-5 and 30-love in No. 3 boys doubles and we lost 3-of-4 supers, and that's kind of been our story all year long.
"But we're pretty young and inexperienced and hopefully as we keep playing, we'll keep getting better. That was the No. 11 team in the state that we lost against."
Winners in girls singles were Bianca Benefee (6-2, 5-7, 10-6) and Choi (6-4, 7-6) for Flower Mound, and White (6-1, 6-1), Shah (6-4, 6-4), Astudillo (6-4, 6-4) and Cauley (4-6, 6-3, 10-8) for Coppell.
"After losing a couple of girls doubles matches, you start to look and think about the possibility of losing those matches in singles, too," Jackson said. "There was a little concern at first but after the doubles, we had a little pow-wow and the kids really stepped up and responded to get us back on track."
Flower Mound looks to bounce back at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday at Lewisville, while Coppell faces Denton Ryan (results not available as of press time).
"We need to put this last match behind us," Wikse said. "If we can beat Lewisville and Denton Ryan, then we have a chance to make something happen. I know I'm pumped and I hope the kids are. We only have four losses this year and we haven't been blown out in any of them. If we can just get over that hump, I think we can make some noise."
"We are tied with Marcus right now and I think the match against Ryan is one we should be able to win," Jackson said. "If we can do that, we can start to set ourselves up for the district tournament because these matches right now are just about the seeding for that tournament."
Hebron, meanwhile, picked up a victory last Tuesday against Denton Ryan, 19-0, and continued yesterday against Marcus (results not available as of press time).
Southlake Carroll on cruise control
While Coppell has been battling in District 5-5A, former district foe Southlake Carroll has had a more comfortable start to life in District 4-5A.
The Dragons stayed hot last week, defeating Justin Northwest Sept. 18, 19-0.
Trough four matches, Carroll is 4-0, dropping just one match overall (in an 18-1 victory over Richland in its district opener).
Last Tuesday, neither the Dragons nor Lady Dragons dropped so much as a set in their shutout.
Alexis Bowen, Brittaney McCasin. Meredith Hope, Lauren Ryniak, Melissa Tran, Angela Schoenhals, Collin Alexander, Jack Learmonth, Connor McDaniel, David Glenn, Daniel Wilson and Matt Landers each won in both singles and doubles.
Todd Danner and Elise Landers, meanwhile, each won in their respective doubles matches, while John Woolridge, Greg Barlow, Kevin Creech, John Zenick, Deborah Rao, Clara Merklin and Laurel Quinto were victorious in singles matches.
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