This past Tuesday the Levelland Highschool Tennis Pack fell short to #12 ranked Lubbock-Cooper Liberty, 16-3, but the final score didn’t tell the full story.
The Lobos and Loboettes may have lost, but there were a lot of positive results from the match, with the biggest of them all being senior Nathan Ellis making school history.
Ellis earned his 150th career win on Tuesday, which easily puts him third in school history based on all available Levelland tennis records.
Head Coach Jeff Braziel proudly shared his thoughts on his athlete reaching the historical benchmark.
'Nathan has worked tirelessly over the past four years to continue to grow and improve, devoting countless hours to the game. He has been an example of how hard work pays off since he was a freshman. This is an accomplishment he has been preparing for all this time,” Braziel said. “Saying I am proud of him really doesn't fully describe the emotion of watching him battle through an amazing three-set match, against one of the top five boy's singles players in 4A Region 1 and come out on top and achieve another massive milestone.”
The achievement is amazing on its own, but when you also acknowledge the elite competition he did it against, it’s even more impressive.
To make history, Ellis won sets one and three in the match with the scores being 7-5, 3-6 and 10-4.
Ellis’ senior teammates may not have made history, but William Canon and Zackary Lopez also earned big wins against Liberty on Tuesday.
Canon lost his first set but battled back to win the final two with the results being 4-6, 6-2 and 10-5.
“After dropping the first set, he came back in that second set, and like I told him, I wouldn't want anyone else in the tiebreaker situation because he doesn’t lose tiebreakers, he’s that kind of kid,” Braziel said.
While Canon had to exercise great resilience, his teammate Zackary Lopez just took care of business by winning the first two sets, 6-4 and 6-3.
That win by Lopez now puts this senior boy's class at 999 total career wins, so they’ll likely hit the 1,000-win mark in their next match.
As great as those boys did, they were unfortunately the only three winners for the Pack in what was a disappointing final result.
“They played well; we just couldn’t win points in matches. The kids gave everything they’ve got and you can’t really blame them for it, we just weren’t the better team that day,” Braziel said. “You’ll have those days and now you have a goal to work towards because you want to win that one next time you play. You never want to lose a match, it’s tough. We’ve got to find that silver lining of what we did well and grow upon that. And then look back at what we didn’t do well and come out to practice the next day and work on it.”
Any spectator of the match could see that the skill deficit wasn’t nearly as large as the score indicated.
Against a highly ranked opponent, the Lobos and Loboettes were extremely competitive in almost every match, but the ball just didn’t bounce their way more times than not.
Following the loss the Pack now sit at 7-5 on the season, but they can move forward with their heads held high and learn from it before their next match on Tuesday.
The Pack will be well-rested after a week-long break from competition as they head into a matchup with their district rivals Brownfield.
“The Levelland, Brownfield tennis rivalry’s been a thing since I played at Brownfield. I’m a Brownfield kid and I played for their current coach. Playing against his teams are ones you always want to win, and we’ve been close, but we haven’t been able to do it the last few years,” Braziel said. “We want to finally get over that hump and win that match, and we want to do it on their court. To take a little pride and come in their house and put one on them. No matter who’s better on paper, it’s always a dog fight versus them, so we’re hoping to come out there with a little more grit and want and bring that one home and go 1-1 in district play.”
This Tuesday at 4:00pm in Brownfield, the Pack looks to earn their first win in years against their rivals.
Make the short drive and support them if you can!