Published Thursday, May 08, 2008 1:30 PM
Updated Thursday, May 08, 2008 1:30 PM
Spring Valley too much for Wave
Green Wave tennis player Brice Weiner fell just short of perfection this season, but he went down fighting.
Weiner, who notched nearly 20 wins in doubles play for the Green Wave this spring, suffered his first loss of the season during a third-round playoff match Tuesday. Spring Valley clinched a team victory shortly after the doubles contest began, but that didn’t stop Weiner and his partner from fighting like there was no tomorrow, which in a manner of speaking was the case for Weiner. He is a senior and Summerville’s season ended as the loss eliminated the Wave from 4-A boys’ tennis playoffs.
With Spring Valley already having a 5-0 advantage at the conclusion of singles play, the doubles teams slugged it out with only a personal victory on the line. The Vikings’ team went up 5-1 to start the match, but Weiner and his partner, Joel Roberts, battled back to tie the score at 5. It remained close from there but in the end, the Spring Valley duo went up 14-12 to clinch the victory.
“That was my toughest match of the year,” Weiner said. “It’s not the way I wanted to go out, but I had a good year and this team is left in good shape. They have a lot of young players and with them returning they should be pretty good.”
Spring Valley turned in a solid performance, but it didn’t totally dominate the match. Both Luke Westbury’s No. 4 singles match and Mason Taylor’s No. 5 match required tiebreakers before Spring Valley triumphed.
Summerville, which swept its region for a second consecutive year, ends the season with a 15-4 record. Wave coach Bryant McKee agrees with Weiner’s assessment on the team’s future.
“Teams can change so much from one year to the next, but we should have some talent next year,” McKee said. “We were good this year and I hope we will be great next year. We have some quality kids who are willing to work hard and I’ve enjoyed coaching them. We should also have some sixth-graders coming up who can contribute.”