Fuquay-Varina boys tennis edges Athens Drive

Fuquay-Varina traveled to Athens Drive and defeated the Jaguars boys tennis team with a score of 5-4 on Monday. The Bengals took two out of three of the double matches and picked up three wins in the single matches to pick up the victory.

Athens Drive’s Andreas Combos and Declan Hoffman picked up the first win of the double matches with an 8-5 victory over Ryan Walzer and Ian Dersham, but Fuquay tied it up at one when Everett Dersham and Curtis Brugler defeated Tyler Brogden and Brian Chetwyrd 8-4.

In the last doubles match Fuquay’s Owen Findley and Daniel Woo picked up the huge 8-6 win to take the last doubles match, which allowed the Bengals to go into singles leading 2-1.

“This is the first match we’ve played since we’ve been off a week, but I think the kids responded well, we hit the ball well and luckily we got the win,” Fuquay Varina coach Marshall Wortham said. “I think everybody played well and to their potential, we had to have a couple guys step up because of injuries, but that’s what you get when you have a team, you win as a team and lose as a team.”

To start off singles play, Athens Drive’s Combos defeated Walzer by winning both sets 6-1, 6-2. The Jaguars picked up the next win as Chetwyrd defeated Nolan Brugler by winning a third-set tiebreaker.

Fuquay-Varina won the next two matches as Curtis Brugler defeated Hoffman by winning the first set 6-1 and the second set 6-2 and Colton Laviska beat Roco Nociti by sweeping both sets 6-0, 6-0.

Sealing the deal was Ian Dersham as he handled Tyler Brogen 6-2, 6-3 to make the score 5-3.

The final match of the day went to Athens Drive as Dylan O’Neal defeated Everett Dersham in a third-set tiebreaker 7-6, 4-6 (10-8).

“There’s definitely improvements made by our players, but there are also some improvements that need to be made by our players,” Athens Drive coach Tiffany Johnson said. “We need to do a little bit better job in being consistent with our first serves and moving our feet and working on fundamentals.”

This story was originally published April 4, 2016 at 11:14 PM with the headline "Fuquay-Varina boys tennis edges Athens Drive."