Two Kosciusko singles players and two doubles teams were defeated in the opening round of the 4A individual tennis championships, but coach Caleb Sanders said they played well against higher seeded opponents.
“I was proud of how everyone fought. We were the underdogs in all of our matches. They fought hard and two came up just short.”
In boys’ singles, freshman Daniel Van, the 10th seed, was defeated by seven seed Simon Cooper of Sumrall 7-6, 7-5. Senior Emmalee Myers, 13th seed in girls’ singles, lost to Niyah Strickland of Quitman, the fourth seed, 6-3. 6-2.
As the 12th seed in mixed doubles, junior Thomas Sims and senior Mary Patton Henderson came the closest to a Kosciusko victory. After splitting sets, they were defeated 10-8 in a super tiebreaker by the fifth seeded Northeast Jones duo of Matthew James and Ember Johnson. The boys’ doubles team of senior Jorge Orduna and freshman Alexis Hernandez was defeated by the top seeded team of John David Nelson and Joseph Durrett from New Albany 6-0, 6-1.
“I'm proud of the way Jorge and Alexis handled playing against the one seed,” Sanders said. “They went in fighting and took most of the games to deuce. Just couldn't find the winning point to take the games.”
The competition was held at the FNC Tennis Center in Oxford.
