Pacer Boys JV Squad Beats OC and the Weather

On Monday April 19^th the Lakeridge boys JV tennis team had two opponents.  The boys battled Oregon City High School at the Clackamas Community College tennis courts; and they also had to battle a not-so-promising weather forecast.

A fairly steady rain shower developed just after the lineups were announced and the new cans of balls were opened; but thankfully the shower ended by the completion of the 10 minute warm up period and the warm temperature helped the courts to dry within a few minutes.  During the next couple of hours there were only some scattered sprinkles -- nothing that could stop Three Rivers League tennis players.

The Pacers not only came out on top of the weather, but also did quite well against the Pioneers.  Lakeridge won 7 of the 9 pro set matches, and the only two they lost went "overtime".

At first doubles Charlie Layton and Matt Stockamp got out to a big lead and held off their athletic and determined foes by a score of 8-3.  The match featured several long rallies and some nice play on each side of the net. 

The net on court 1, by the way, looked like it had seen quite a few battles over its too long life.  Balls were almost as likely to go through this net as they were to be stopped by it.  But the players adjusted and realized that balls that went through were considered to have been stopped by the net, which ended the points when this occurred.  (The net on court 4 was in a similar state of disrepair.)

Jake Lautze and Tommy Deal made quick work of their opponents at second doubles.  In only slightly more time than it took for the warm up session, Jake and Tommy posted an 8-0 victory.  The Pacers strong play from the outset seemed to have rocked the confidence of the Pioneers and the OC team was unable to recover.

At third doubles, Joseph Criscione and Houston Tuck battled a tough OC team, but they also battled their own inconsistent performance.  In the end they were able to overcome both foes to post an 8-6 victory.  During several service games it seemed like the Pacers had equal numbers of aces and double faults; many of these games were decided by the deuce point.

David Rohkohl and Kurt Patzkowski played fourth doubles for the Pacers.  They played well in posting an 8-4 victory.

The fifth doubles team for Lakeridge was Jake Sandor and Mark Grothe.  Jake's consistent serve and ground strokes and Mark's aggressive net play proved to be too much for the Pioneers.  The Pacers won 8-4.

Sixth doubles featured Aaron Hooper and Tom Viggiano.  Either Aaron and Tom weren't paying attention when the coaches announced the scoring format for the matches, or they were having such a good match that they didn't want it to end.  At any rate, rather than playing a match-deciding tiebreak at 8-games all, the players decided to play an advantage set (one team must win by two games to decide the match outcome).  As it turned out, this strategy favored the Pioneers; they won the final two games and posted a 10-8 victory.

Another "overtime" victory for the Pioneers occurred at seventh doubles.  Michael Easley and Arjun Mehra fought hard, but came up just short of forcing a tiebreak, as OC won 9-7.  The quality  of play in this match illustrated the depth of tennis skills of both schools.

Since the Pioneers had a few more players than the Pacers, some of the Lakeridge guys got to play twice.  David and Kurt teamed up again and won 8-6.  The Pacers seemed to lose their focus a bit in the match, but were able to rebound in time to garner the victory.

Jake Sandor and Mark Grothe also played again.  Their focus allowed them to survive the distraction of some loud "street" tennis being played by a bunch of the OC guys on an adjacent court.  The Pacer pair won 8-4.