This past Tuesday, the Levelland Highschool Tennis Pack bounced back in a big way against Greenwood, winning 101, improving their record to 5-4 on the season.
The match ended early due to lightning strikes, so the Pack won by technicality, but regardless of how it happened, the weight of the win is immense.
The victory against Greenwood put an end to a twomatch losing skid to put the team back on track, but it didn’t come easy at first. The Lobos and Loboettes started sluggishly before the dominant victory, which Head Coach Jeffrey Braziel addressed.
“When you start really slow like that, it’s frustrating at first because you know what you can do. But you’ve got to remember, it’s the first day of school and they’re kids,” Braziel said. “There’s a lot of anxiety and stress when it comes to the first day of school. A lot of energy is spent beforehand, it’s a big difference from playing in the summer and then during school time. Once we just turned it on, we never looked back, so it’s great to see that we were able to start slow and not stay slow.”
With the new school year starting, the slow start for the Pack is understandable, but they adapted and overcame to secure the win. The win was a result of team wide dominance, but Coach Braziel recognized two of his athletes that stole the show.
“Daisy Perez took games and went and handled business, and so did Reese Payton. They went into singles and were done in about 25 minutes,” Braziel said.
Along with the effective and efficient individual performances of Perez and Payton, the boys team starred in their doubles matchups.
“We mixed things up on the boy’s side in doubles and it worked out. I liked what we saw, their ability to adapt and come out with some big ones,” Braziel said. “The boys handled business in doubles really easily.”
The change in doubles teammate pairings comes after the two-game losing skid and given its success, the newfound pairings will likely continue in the future.
Kudos to the team for their domination, but as they move forward, they will look to eliminate slow starts, which is something Coach Braziel acknowledged his team struggles with.
“Our thing is that we start slow, and we can’t let the outside things influence how we start. Once we cross those gates, it’s time to lock in and play,” Braziel said. “We’ve had a slow start a couple times this season and I hope we can lock in and not have those.”
The Pack will look to change for the better by taking command of matches early on in hopes of more well-rounded performances. They’ll get their chance as they play on the road at Lakeview this weekend, before returning home next Tuesday. On Tuesday, Levelland hosts the Kingdom Preparatory Academy for a match at 4 p.m., come out and support the Pack.