GREENFIELD — The last time the New Palestine and Greenfield-Central girls tennis teams met on the court, the Cougars shocked the Dragons, sending them home for the season.
That memory hasn’t gone away for New Palestine. After beating their county rivals 4-1 during the regular season and finishing ahead of them in the county tournament in 2018, the Dragons fell to Greenfield-Central, 3-2, in the sectional opener last spring.
They came out motivated to get back to the regular-season success Tuesday at Greenfield-Central. Behind the strength of their doubles duos and some strong singles play, the Dragons got past the hosts with a 4-1 win.
“We really had this mindset that we wanted to come out here and win 5-0,” New Palestine senior Claire Cherry said. “We wanted to show that we shouldn’t have lost in that first-round match last year. Greenfield’s a great team, they have great players, but we just wanted to show that we’re capable of beating them.”
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryThere was plenty of familiarity on the court, with 11 of the 14 players returning from last season’s regular-season and sectional matchups.
The head-to-head pairings were different across the board, though, as the graduation of both a No. 1 singles and No. 1 doubles player bumped several players up in Greenfield-Central’s lineup, giving everyone new opponents this year.
“We might have lost 1-4, but I think across the board, the girls looked good tonight, better than they’ve looked early in the season,” Greenfield-Central coach Michael Turpin said. “I have a lot of people that are still just getting used to their new positions, and it’s tougher opponents that they are playing. They’re going to have to play some harder points, but they are adjusting. They look way better than they did the first match of the season.”
The Dragons got rolling early behind their top doubles duo of Cherry and Josee King.
The seniors, who advanced to the regional round of last year’s state tournament, were first off the court on Tuesday, picking up a relatively quick 6-0, 6-4 win against Greenfield-Central’s Alyson Proper and Erin Wright.
Next off the court was the second doubles duo of Sheridan Schrowe and Ashley Truman, who topped the Cougars’ Kaleigh Stephenson and Grace Silcox, 6-4, 6-1.
That gave the Dragons two quick points, both coming from their doubles positions. That’s something they expect to see on a regular basis.
“They are four seniors, and they played doubles for us last year,” New Palestine coach Jean Graham said. “They’re good players. I was really happy with the play of my number one singles and one doubles. They played well.”
Megan Long clinched the win for New Palestine at the No. 1 singles position. Long, a junior, faced off with Greenfield-Central’s new No. 1, junior Avery Spencer.
Long picked up a 6-2, 6-3 victory, giving the Dragons their third point and the win.
“It’s been a big jump going from two singles to one singles, kind of still getting that adjustment to playing different people that I’m not used to,” Spencer said. “Kind of the game speed up a little bit, too. I think (Tuesday’s loss) is going to serve as motivation for Monday, for county, and heading into sectionals.”
The final point for New Palestine came at No. 3 singles, where Caylie Almond topped Nae Pattakul by a score of 7-6, 6-2.
Greenfield-Central got on the board with the longest match of the night, the sole three-setter. Junior Grace Hall topped New Palestine’s Nicole Wernimont, 3-6, 6-1, 6-3.
“She came out and won a tough match,” Turpin said of Hall. “That’s another good thing for the team going forward. She had a tough match against New Pal last year, so I know that this one meant a lot for her. The rest of the team can build off that one.”
The win pushes the Dragons overall record to 3-2 early in the year. The Cougars fall to 1-7 on the year with the loss.
Both teams are hoping to use the rest of this week to prepare for next week’s rescheduled county tournament, where they will each be looking to unseat the defending champion, Mt. Vernon.
“It’s been a rough start. We kind of always do that, and we always get better as we go on throughout the season,” Spencer said of the Cougars’ season so far. ”Our goal is to kind of take these next three matches we have the rest of the week and improve to be ready for county on Monday.”
“It feels good to get the win,” Graham said. “It’s a conference win, it’s a county foe. We need to improve on some things, but we’ll work on that this week and see if we can’t be better by county.”