CCLP/TJ MAXWELL - Copperas Cove’s Trystan Jackson watches his serve during his doubles’ match with Nick Motley against Lampasas on Tuesday. Jackson and Motley won the match 6-2, 6-4 and also picked up singles wins for the team.CCLP/TJ MAXWELL - Copperas Cove’s Zonya Mackwelung hits a backhand against Lampasas on Tuesday.

STRONG START

Dawg Tennis holds off surging Lampasas squad to move to 10-2 on season
By TJ MAXWELL
Cove Leader-Press
 
The Copperas Cove Dawg Tennis team improved their season record to 10-2 with a 12-7 win over the Lampasas Badgers at home on Tuesday.
 
The Dawgs took advantage of some solid doubles play to take a 5-2 lead into the singles portion of the tournament.
 
“We came out in doubles with a lot of energy and put a lot of pressure on Lampasas early in each match to take control of doubles coming out with a 5-2 lead,” said head tennis coach Paul Talbett. “We were up 3-0 before they came off with their first win.
 
“We have been working on getting off the court in matches we are up in quickly, and stretching out the matches we are down in, so we came get the mental advantage of getting out to a quick lead.”
 
The boy’s doubles duo of Tristan Jackson and Nick Motley picked up a big win (6-2, 6-4) for Cove on the boys’ side that has struggled against the Badgers. Jackson and Motley also picked up big wins in their singles along with Gavin Glick.
 
Jackson outlasted Lampasas’ Folks by a score of 6-2, 2-6 (10-4) while Glick and Motley earned lopsided wins over their Lampasas Counterparts. Glick won 7-5, 6-3 over Munoz and Motley won 6-1, 6-1 over Carr.
 
“Our boys continue to show their improvement this year by going 4-5 with Lampasas,” said Talbett. “Lampasas is another team our boys had trouble with last year. In our three matches with them, the closest we came to them was 1-8 on the boys’ side. Last year at this time, our boys were winning a little under 30 percent of our matches played on the boys’ side. This year that figure is about 63 percent of matches played. That is a big reason why we are sitting at 10-2 this year up from 7-5 last year at this time. Our boys are 7-5 on their side this year up from 2-10 last year at this time.”
 
The mixed doubles duo of Dalton Heil and Sami Turner also picked up a win to help the Dawgs stretch their early lead.
 
The girls took care of business on their side, winning all their doubles matches and 4-of-6 singles matches.
 
The no. 1 team of Latoya Alokoa and Tessa Bliss earned a 6-2, 6-3 over Lampasas duo Lawson/Connell and the no. 3 duo of Alyssa Gonzalez and Zamira Manuel also made quick work of their opponents Dunning/Hunter by a score of 6-3, 6-2.
 
The Mackwelung sisters of Abby and Zonya had to work a bit harder but garnered the same sweeping results. They won the first set easily 6-1 but were pushed to a 7-5 results in game two.
 
Singles wins by Bliss, Gonzalez and the Mackwelung sisters closed out the match for Copperas Cove. The only two losses on the girl’s side were tiebreakers where Alokoa and Manuel fought back froma set down to force e tiebreak. Alokoa fell 10-6 in the breaker and Manuel was edged 10-8.
 
“Our girls keep on playing solid tennis and won their side 7-2. Our girls winning percentage is about 75% this year, even though we lost several girls from our strong team from last year. They keep playing solid tennis in every match. We are 11-1 with our girls this year.”
 
Dawg Tennis will host Liberty Hill this afternoon at 4 p.m. and follow up on Saturday with a quad match against San Saba and San Angelo Lakeview in Brownwood before heading back to Waco on Tuesday to face Robinson.
 
“We have a big match with Liberty Hill,” said Talbett. “Last year Liberty Hill was a Region III 4A semifinalist and ranked in the top 15. They are a senior-heavy team. We are looking to the challenge to see where we are at early in the season.”
 

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