New Palestine’s Arjomand Khokhar serves against Greenfield-Central on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022.
GREENFIELD — For the third consecutive day, Greenfield-Central made quick work of their opponent. And once again, it was another team ranked ahead of them in the district that was on the losing end — New Palestine.
The Cougars topped the Dragons 3-2 to improve to 6-1 on the season, while New Palestine fell to 1-5.
Greenfield-Central picked up two points very early on.
In the No.3 singles match, junior Matt Hyre topped Brady Torzewski 6-0, 6-1.
Just after the finish of that match, junior C.J. Michalek closed out the No. 2 singles match by defeating New Palestine’s Arjomand Khokhar 6-2, 6-0.
To decide the match it was Greenfield-Central’s No. 2 doubles team of Luke Sitzman and Alex Michalek defeating New Palestine’s Will Hahn and Joey McPike 6-4, 6-3.
“We got the win and we ground out the points,” Greenfield-Central head coach Michael Turpin said. “We looked good in a couple of spots, but that was uglier than it needed to be.”
Playing three consecutive nights seemed to have little effect on the Cougars, and Turpin expressed that. When asked how a stretch like that can affect his team, he was short and blunt. “We’re conditioned,” he said.
With the match out of reach, New Palestine still fought hard, grabbing the No.1 singles and No. 1 doubles matches.
In back-to-back nights, Greenfield-Central’s Chris Long had his work cut out for him in the No.1 singles match. Last night it was a three set match against New Castle’s Trent Alfrey who finished last season 7-0, and tonight it was against New Palestine sophomore Moses Haynes who has now won his last four matches. Haynes defeated Long 6-4, 6-4.
“Chris has played great. He’s shown us what he’s capable of,” Turpin said. “You could say maybe (Tuesday) took a little bit of a toll for (Wednesday), but we’re not going to make excuses.”
The last group on the court was the No. 1 doubles match between the Cougars team of Caden Robertson and Michael Kwiatkowski and the Dragons team of Max Havel and Eli Sloan.
In what was the longest match of the night, New Palestine outlasted Greenfield-Central 7-5, 6-4.
Even on a night in which the match’s outcome was decided within the first hour, Turpin’s main focus was on the areas in which the Cougars can improve and clean up the little mistakes he saw.
“All this did was show me the things that we need to work on,” Turpin said. “We’re going to be happy tonight that we’re 6-1, but sometimes when you win it’s ugly and that shows you that you still have a lot of work to do. There’s a lot of things we can work on and a lot of strategies we can improve going forward.”
