Dawg Tennis improves to 8-3 with wins over Robinson, Lampasas

By TJ MAXWELL
Cove Leader-Press

The Copperas Cove tennis program improved to 8-3 in the team tennis season with a dominant win over Robinson last Friday and a revenge win over Lampasas on Tuesday.
Dawg Tennis took an early 5-2 lead over the Rockets through doubles before taking complete control with 10 singles match wins to secure the 15-4 win.
The boys dominated the day, winning eight of nine matches.
The Dawgs then avenged a 10-8 loss to Lampasas in the Centex Team Tournament with a hard-fought 10-9 win on Tuesday.
After trailing 4-3 at the conclusion of doubles play and 4-8 midway into singles action, the Dawgs pulled together to win seven out of 12 singles’ matches to get the win.
“We had some pressure put on us early as we came out of doubles down 3-4,” said Copperas Cove head tennis coach Paul Talbett. “We had two big third-set tie-breaker losses in doubles that put us in an early hole.  After the first five singles come off, we were down 4-8 with a big hole to climb out of.
Noah Samarripa fought off seven total match points to win a marathon 9-7 battle to save the night for the Dawgs.
“Noah was down 2-7, love-40,” said Talbett.  “He fought off four match points in the game, and three others in the match to pull it out 9-7.  As it turned out that would have given Lampasas their 10th win and the match would have been over.  At the same time Noah came off, Lampasas picked up their ninth win.”
Five-straight wins then closed out the win for the Dawgs.
“Down 9-5, we came through pulling off the last five matches to pull it out,” said Talbett.  Martha Abraham, Ben Fernandez, and Ari Diaz made it an 8-9 match.  Lele Kinere won to make it 9-9, and on the very next point played, Noah Chapman pulled out a tough match to make it 10. Chapman was also down in his match 7-6 and fought back to win 9-7.  
“This was a big win for us tonight as our very young team got to experience another match that came down to the last match and we pulled it out.”
Dawg Tennis next travels to Ellison today for a 4:30 p.m. contest before heading to Brownwood/Early for a quad match against San Saba at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday followed by a 1:30 p.m. matchup with San Angelo Lakeview.