ALBANY —
After defeating a very tough Crisp County Lady Cougar team on Tuesday, the Lady Panthers of Americus-Sumter were hoping to keep their early season hot streak alive against the Westover Lady Patriots in Albany on Thursday. The Lady Panthers accomplished that task with a huge 4-1 win over Westover, but their male counterparts took a big hit to their Region 1-AAAA Title hopes after dropping three matches to the Patriots in a 2-3 loss in region play.
The Lady Panthers great day started with their excellent play in singles competition against the Lady Patriots. Number one singles player Di Qi and number two singles player Lauren Resnick each dominated the competition by not surrendering a single game to their opponents in two 6-0, 6-0 match wins . Westover number one singles player Savannah Bowen and number two singles player Rachel Clenney were the unfortunate opponents of the Lady Panthers who never could get into a rhythm as they were each held scoreless in the two match losses.
Westover would claim their first win of the match in number three singles competition when Lady Patriot Jessica Rehberg took down Americus-Sumter’s Camille Bennett 6-3, 6-0 to claim a victory in the final singles match-up.
The Lady Patriots would need to sweep the two doubles matches to claim the match victory against the Lady Panthers, but even missing one of their top players in doubles would not keep Americus-Sumter from victory.
With number one doubles player Jennifer Pinnell missing the match due to illness, Mariam Perez stepped up to join teammate Ciara James in the number one doubles match. After defeating Westover’s Morgan Barton and Lauren Bowers 6-2 in the opening set, Perez and James stepped up to finish the match with a 6-3 second set to seal the overall victory for the Lady Panthers.
Number two doubles players Sara Westra and Brooke Benton would not be kept away from the party, however, as they won a close first set 6-4 over Ally Hayes and Stephanie of Westover before taking the second set in convincing fashion 6-2. Westra and Benton’s win in number two doubles wrapped up the match for the Lady Panthers giving Americus-Sumter a dominating 4-1 victory over one of their toughest region opponents.
The Panthers were not as lucky in their match, however, as a both doubles teams came up short against Westover to drop the match 2-3. After taking two of the three singles matches, each of the Panthers two doubles teams would drop extremely close matches to suffer a disappointing early season loss to their tough region opponent.
Joel Landis completed another strong match this season with a dominating win over Westover number one singles player Lane Hatcher 6-0, 6-1. After dropping his first set 2-6 to Dillon Notz of Westover, Heeral McGee would follow Landis’ lead with a 7-5 second set victory and a 6-1 tiebreaker win to claim a thrilling win in number two singles and give Americus-Sumter a 2-0 match lead.
Panther head coach Carl Willis was very complimentary of McGee’s big time performance in crunch time for the Panthers. “After dropping his first set, Heeral came back and showed a lot of maturity for only being a freshman. He took charge of his third set and gave our team a chance to win,” said Willis. “We had a brief discussion and he found some weaknesses which showed a lot of maturity on his part.”
Charles Kinnamon would fall to number three singles Patriot 3-6 in each of his two sets to drop the number three singles match, and Americus-Sumter’s Jason Parks and Andre Medina would fall to Nathan Bell and Mark Peterson 5-7 in their first set and 4-6 in the second set to tie the overall match score at 2-2. In a dramatic number two doubles match, Khelan McGee and Logan Bennett would narrowly drop their first set 4-6 to Westover’s Win Bell and Chirag Mendpara. The Americus-Sumter duo would take the second set 6-4 to force a tiebreaker for the overall match victory, but Westover’s pair would win the tiebreaker 6-4 to earn the win and issue the Panthers a heart-breaking 2-3 early season loss.
“We are planning to get this thing fixed,” said Willis. “We have only lost two regular season matches in the last three years, so we will get it fixed.”
The Panthers will now have a tough road if they hope to become region champions for the third year in a row. Americus-Sumter will host two home matches next week when they welcome Region 1-AAAA rivals Worth County and Albany to town for matches on Tuesday and Thursday. Each of the Panthers matches will begin at 4:30 p.m.
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Related Photos
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Number two singles player Heeral McGhee put his team in a position to win against Westover on Thursday night in Albany. The Lady Panthers took their match 4-1 while the guys fell 2-3 to the Patriots. Scott Phillips
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Number two singles player Lauren Resnick put her team in a position to win against Westover on Thursday night in Albany. The Lady Panthers took their match 4-1 while the guys fell 2-3 to the Patriots. Scott Phillips
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