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(ALEX HAVARDANSKY | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Jade Dospapas saves a ball defensively during her singles match Friday, Aug. 1. Dospapas was one of three girls who picked up a singles win against Peaster 8-6. -
(ALEX HAVARDANSKY | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Raife Bishop stands ready to return a serve Saturday, Aug. 2. Bishop had the closest contest of any of the boys singles matches against Peaster, fighting hard in an 8-4 loss. -
(ALEX HAVARDANSKY | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Stacy Gonzalez goes after a ball Friday, Aug. 1. Gonzalez had the most assertive win for Graham in singles competition against Peaster. -
(ALEX HAVARDANSKY | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Hope Jones follows through after making contact with a ball Friday, Aug. 1. Jones picked up a narrow 9-8 win over her Peaster singles opponent in a tie breaker.
After a short break in their schedule, Graham’s varsity tennis teams couldn’t get the job done against Peaster, losing on the day 15-4 and bringing their record to 3-2 on the new season.
Despite the loss, this isn’t something that is causing head coach Matt Birdwell, or anyone on the tennis roster to panic. Birdwell acknowledged going into the day the reputation that Peaster held and that Graham had a big test against them.
“Sometimes you play a better team,” Birdwell said. “Today they were better than we were. They beat Wall (high school) last year to get third in the state. I knew it was going to be a tough match and they lived up to it.”
There wasn’t much to smile about on the boys side today as they lost all of their singles and doubles matches.
The mixed doubles team of Brodey Mills and Olivia Buckley fought hard but were also defeated by Peaster’s team losing 8-2 in their match.
The girls’ side of things did offer some bright spots though. Despite every match being tough, three players were able to pull out victories over their singles opponents for Graham, those being Jade Dospapas, Stacy Gonzalez and Hope Jones.
Gonzalez had the firmest win of the three. She still got into a bit of a back and forth with her opponent but ultimately closed out her match with an 8-4 victory.
The Lady Blues number one ranked girls player, Dospapas, got into a tight matchup at the top of the leader board but pulled out a win 8-6. Jones got into an even tighter matchup but came out victorious as well winning 9-8 in a tie breaker.
Gonzalez and Jones also teamed up on the women’s doubles side of things to come up with the teams only doubles win on the day with an 8-4 victory.
Birdwell said after the meet that he told his team to essentially scrap this one as a learning experience and focus on their next match against Azle.
“We should be on about the same footing as Azle. So I think we should bounce back against an opponent that’s around our skill level,” Birdwell said.
After facing off Monday, Aug. 11, against Azle the team will face Bridgeport at 4 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 14.
