MORGANTOWN – The Buckhannon-Upshur boys’ tennis team came oh so close to their first victory of the season on Wednesday suffering a 4-3 loss to Liberty at the Lincoln High courts in Big 10 Conference play.
The day before, the Bucs traveled to Morgantown and dropped a 7-0 decision in non-conference action.
The Bucs failed to win a set against the Mohigans.
“Morgantown is at a whole other level of tennis,” remarked Buckhannon-Upshur head coach Jason Rock. “I think we have a lot of work to do as a team in the off season to try to reach a level to be able to compete with teams like them. Mentally as well though. Sometimes it’s easy to go into a match defeated like we’ve already lost. I think my more experienced players showed fight though and had the right attitude. Jude Snyder showed a positive attitude throughout his matches also and even played a third match as an exhibition player just to play more tennis and continue getting better.”
Against Liberty, the Bucs trailed 2-1 after doubles action as Cody Trainer and Jacob Ham got the win for the Bucs at No. 3 doubles winning an 8-5 decision against Logan Morgan and Isaac Ash.
The Bucs won two matches at singles, with Snyder winning an 8-2 decision over Eli Morrison at No. 1 and Tommy Swift winning 9-7 over Ash at No. 4 doubles.
”The match was really exciting for us because it was a pretty big turnaround from playing Morgantown back to back,” noted Rock. “The level of tennis was competitive in every match and kudos to our kids because even the players not playing were invested in every match and really cheering on their teammates. Jude got his first win in singles and definitely was the better player on the court. He showed that and won easily Tommy fought for his match and fought off going to a tiebreaker to pull out his match. And kudos to No. 3 doubles as Cody and Jacob have both been getting better and better week after week with experience and it’s starting to show on the court with their doubles play.”
The pair of losses dropped the Bucs to 0-11 overall and 0-7 in Big 10 Conference action.
The Bucs were slated to go to the northern panhandle over the weekend to face John Marshall and Brooke.
They will return to action Monday playing Elkins at 4 p.m. at Davis & Elkins College.
The results:
Morgantown 7 Buckhannon-Upshur 0
Singles
No. 1 – Bennett Hall (M) def. Jude Snyder, 8-0
No. 2 – Wyatt Abbitt (M) def. Matthew Adams, 8-0
No. 3 – Max Chen (M) def. Bradly Helmick, 8-0
No. 4 – Max Warner (M) def. Tommy Swift, 8-0
Doubles
No. 1 – Hall and Hayden Swoyer (M) def. Snyder and Adams, 8-0
No. 2 – Steven TIan and Abbitt (M) def. Helmick and Swift, 8-0
No. 3 – Ronan Rogers and Chen (M) def. Cody Trainer and Jacob Ham, 8-0
Liberty 4 Buckhannon-Upshur 3
Singles
No. 1 – Jude Snyder (B-U) def. Eli Morrison, 8-2
No. 2 – Asher Smith (Lib.) def. Matthew Adams, 8-1
No. 3 – Tony Goots (Lib.) def. Bradly Helmick, 8-3
No. 4 – Tommy Swift (B-U) def. Isaac Ash, 9-7
Doubles
No. 1 – Morrison and Smith (Lib.) def. Snyder and Adams, 8-3
No. 2 – Quintavious and Asher Smith (Lib.) def. Adams and Helmick, 8-3
No. 3 –Cody Trainer and Jacob Ham (B-U) def. Logan Morgan and Ash, 8-5
