After four hours of state playoff tennis, Salisbury coach Bill Lee’s knees were
woefully weak.Fortunately,
after four hours of state playoff tennis, the nerves and serves of Michelle Leonard and
Tonya Fox were strong as steel.
Leonard and Fox roared from behind
in the decisive doubles match at City Park on Monday as the Hornets (20-0) edged Central
Carolina Conference rival Lexington for the third time this year and reached the state
dual team semifinals for the seventh consecutive season.
Salisbury will play Statesville or
Newton-Conover on Thursday to decide the state’s Western champion. The winner of
Thursday’s match will play for the 2A state title in Burlington on Saturday.
“We’re thrilled to
win,” said Lee, after the 5-4 knee-knocker. “Thrilled to have one more chance.
Thrilled to play at least one more day.”
Lee had every reason to be
thrilled that his gallant girls yanked this one from the fire, long after the hopes of the
faint-hearted had flown away like the south-bound geese honking overhead.
Salisbury and Lexington were so
even that at 7:45 p.m. the score sheet read 4-4 with Leonard-Fox and Lexington’s
twosome of Lin Bunce-Natalie King deadlocked at 7-7 in the remaining match.
When Bunce and King rallied from
0-40 to pull ahead 8-7, then took a 9-7 advantage, Salisbury’s racket dynasty was a
mere four points away from extinction.
But Leonard carried the Hornets
back to 9-8. Then Fox came to life with a game-winning service smash to make it 9-9.
As a huge, vocal crowd gathered,
temporarily oblivious to the Hornets playoff soccer match across town, Fox’s winner
at the net pushed her team ahead 10-9. The Hornet pair finally survived 11-9 after Fox
made two more put-aways and Leonard applied an exclamation point with a crunching service
ace.
Asked what she was thinking when
she and her partner were down 9-7, Leonard replied stoically: “Were we really? I
didn’t know the score.”
But then she got serious.
“We took it to the wire, but
in the end we did well,” she said. “Tonya stepped up big at the net.”
“Those last couple of games,
we finally got to see a glimmer of what those two can do as a doubles team,” added a
relieved Lee.
In singles, Fox won easily at No.
2 and Doris Reinholz rolled at No. 3, but Lexington got wins from Catherine Koontz, the
state 2A singles runner-up, and Emily Hedrick (No. 4) to even matters.
Unbeaten Lane Wallace pushed the
Hornets ahead 3-2 with a wild win at No. 5. Wallace beat Ginny Taylor, who attacked the
ball more aggressively than anyone she had played.
“It took time to
adjust,” said Wallace. “Most people just sweep the ball back to me, but she was
really hitting it.”
Wallace also was credited with an
assist when Brandy Albracht prevailed at No. 6 in a match that Lee had declared a must-win
if the Hornets were going to survive.
“My grip was all wet in my
first set (a 6-3 win), but then Lane gave me some grip stuff,” said Albracht.
Albracht, who usually gets to play
quiet, almost invisible matches on the far courts found herself the sudden center of
attention when hers was the final singles affair to finish.
“I’d hear that crowd
yell and get nervous,” said Albracht. “But then I blocked it all out and
concentrated.”
She focused well enough to breeze
in her second set 6-0. That gave the Hornets a 4-2 cushion heading to singles. They would
be glad that they had that pad.
Because Lexington ruled at No. 2
and No. 3 doubles, evening matters at 4-4 and throwing a Drew Carey-sized weight on the
shoulders of Leonard, a junior, and Fox, a sophomore.
They showed they could carry the
load.
“Still, you’ve got to
give Lexington credit,” said Lee. “They came down here to play, fired up.
We’re fortunate to beat that team three times. They deserved to move on as much as
anyone did.”
But beat them the Hornets did,
although two of the three contests literally came down to a couple of deep returns —
and a couple of deep breaths.
n
NOTES: Lee expects to host
unbeaten Statesville on Thursday. ... Newton-Conover has already eliminated Shelby, the
team that knocked off the Hornets in the Western finals the past two seasons. |
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