MOULTRIE – Due to circumstances beyond their control, there’s been very little chance to work on the tennis courts – either in match settings or just simple practice – for Colquitt County High’s teams in what must seem like an eternity.

After all, the season began in February with a flurry of activity, both for non-region and Region 1-7A competition. That all came to a screeching halt towards the end of March as one reason after another sprouted up to call off scheduled school days with the already planned spring break lodged in-between.

Today, the Region 1-7A tennis tournament takes place hosted by Tift County High School. With it being a four-team region, first-place boys and girls teams will play the No. 4 seeds, and the No. 2s face the No. 3s. Winning teams and losing teams face each other to determine seeding for the upcoming GHSA Class 7A tournament.

“It’s what could be expected with a long delay,” said Colquitt boys coach Mell Wier Monday about the state of the Packers heading into the postseason. “The way the schedule worked out this year, the folks we play all had spring break after we did. It ended up nobody wanted to play during their spring break. We probably would have played during ours, but it’s hard to find folks willing to give up their break.

“The guys who are going to play at region are hitting the ball well. The last couple of matches before spring break, I had a couple of guys who were out sick. That gave some of the younger guys a chance to step in and show during a real match what they can do.”

Even when school was out, Wier said players continued to work on their game, that is when the weather allowed it.

“Chris Rogers is one of them, and he earned a spot … if we had played region before spring break, he would be my first alternate,” said Wier. “Now, he’s going to be playing No. 2 singles. He’s gotten better, a lot more solid and consistent.

“Rob Wallace and Alyn Herndon are going to play No. 1 doubles. No. 2 is going to be a mixture of those who’ve played doubles before. I don’t have any real superstar tennis players, but I have eight or nine I could put in any position and do well.”

As the season moved along, Wier moved freshman Hayden Holloway into the varsity singles lineup. Holloway grabbed the No. 3 singles spot and held on all the way up to today’s region contests.

“It’s in his family,” said Wier, referencing that Holloway has a brother playing in college. “This is his sport. I think he can get a lot more consistent. With ninth graders, it’s the mental aspect. They go through middle school, and they’re basically playing people their age. Now, he’s playing people three or four years older. There are some learning curves … to deal with adversity.”

Colquitt County’s boys will play Lowndes first, and it’s their goal to face either Camden County or Tift County for the championship. The uphill battle there is that the Packers lost both regular season encounters with the Vikings.

“Lowndes is good,” said Wier. “I don’t think we played particularly well. In my opinion, they are better than Camden, even though Camden is No. 1. I told them this is the time you have to do it. We do it Wednesday, every other loss is forgotten.”

The other incentive to get an early win is guaranteed hosting in the state first round.

On the Lady Packer side, it’s been a year-long struggle to find that consistency. The result is facing No. 1 Camden County to start of region play in Tifton. The girls also had some missed opportunities to work on the court from all the circumstances – like stormy weather – beyond their control.

“We’ve had a busy season,” said coach Brad Roberts. “We’ve had our ups and downs. My expectations I guess were higher than we have come to.”

The coach expects to face Tift County for state seeding. Their meetings already with the Lady Blue Devils were close, but ended up in Tift’s favor.

“If our doubles will play one of their best games, along with our No. 3 singles, we could pull out a win,” said Roberts. “It’s going to be hard. Tift is a very good team. They have veterans. Our girls are going to have to play to the best of their abilities to pull it out against any of those region teams.”

Today is also when Roberts said he will know just what impact the lack of match action lately will have on Colquitt.

“We didn’t have all the days last week to practice like I wanted to,’ he said. “We have two days this week. When you have a big pause, it usually hurts you. This group of kids, a lot are new to varsity. I will say, what I saw last week in the couple of days we did get, it looked like we had a lot of work to do.”

During the season, Roberts made lineup changes in doubles and singles, always looking to see what would make the team its strongest. He said it’s been an obstacle getting doubles teams to compete, and that was still a work in progress as of Monday.

As with the boys team, the Lady Packer lineup saw a freshman step in midway through and claim a singles spot. Roberts said it took Anna Marie Saunders some time to get into the tennis flow since she is also a football/basketball game cheerleader.

“I’ve seen an improvement in her where she started off on JV and slowly progressed,” said Roberts. “So I pulled one singles girl and put her at doubles and moved Anna Marie up. That has helped.

“Her and my other two singles are really close to each other. They could beat each other on any given day. But she is the most inexperienced on varsity, so it is best for her to play at No. 3.”