Fort Mill rallies past Northwestern, falls to Clover
The Fort Mill boys’ tennis team opened the season with a 4-3 win over Region III opponent Northwestern.
Fort Mill captured the first two points with wins from the No. 2 doubles and No. 5 singles. The Jackets came back from being down one set to win at No. 3 and No. 4 singles to decide the match.
Fort Mill’s No. 2 doubles partners, Josh Hall and Trey Robertson, won 6-4, 6-1. In No. 5 singles, Graham Lancaster won 6-1, 6-2 for the Jackets.
In the third set tie breakers, Fort Mill’s Tejas Padmanabhan lost the first set 6-1, but bounced back to win 6-4 and 11-9 in the third set at No. 3 singles. At No. 4 singles for Fort Mill, Matt Sanford lost his first set 6-0, but bounced back to win the second set 7-5 forcing a third set, which he won 10-5.
Later in the week, Fort Mill fell to Clover 6-0 with only one of those matches going to a third set tiebreaker in the Jackets’ No. 1 player Apoorva Mehta, who lost 3-6, 6-3, 11-9.
Fort Mill head coach Willie Ware said Clover was a tough opponent for the Jackets.
Fort Mill will host rivals Nation Ford this week at home, while hitting the road to Rock Hill Thursday.
Mac Banks: mbanks@comporium.net, @MacBanksFM
This story was originally published March 14, 2016 at 11:32 AM with the headline "Fort Mill rallies past Northwestern, falls to Clover."