Middle school tennis teams win conference titles

Published 6:14 pm Tuesday, March 16, 2021

MOULTRIE – The Colquitt County middle school tennis teams claimed South Georgia Big Five Conference championships Monday, as both the girls’ and boys’ teams outlasted their opponents in an all-day tournament at Packer Park.

The girls’ team, coached by Anna Barber, entered the tournament as the No. 1 seed, and completed an undefeated season with a 4-0 win over Valdosta and a 3-1 victory over Coffee in the final.

Elizabeth Redding won both of her matches on the day in singles, as did both doubles teams of Kenlee Dalton and Julia Costin, and Emily Lampman and Reese Webb.  Clara Newton earned the fourth point in the Valdosta match. 

The Colquitt County girls’ tennis team also includes top-seed Ada Craft, Laura Gonzales, Arlin Smith, Frances Bius, Jayley Johnson and Juliette Turner. 

Coach Tatum Shivers’ boys team entered the day in a three-way tie atop the conference standings at 5-1. Conference tie-breakers dropped Colquitt to No. 2 for the tournament, which required the young Packers to play three matches on the day. 

In the first match Monday morning, the boys defeated Lowndes 4-0 as Wesley Montgomery won his singles match, Jack Taunton and Clayton Azar won a doubles match and Lowndes forfeited two points. 

In their second match, they boys faced a determined Valdosta team.  Just five days earlier, Colquitt notched a convincing 4-1 victory over the young Wildats in Valdosta, but Monday’s match was tougher.

The Packers faced pending elimination as they lost two of the first three matches, with only the doubles team of Bailee Fountain and Harrison Sims winning early.  Taunton and Azar won their second match of the day, and then Ty Hurst – the only 8th-grader on the squad – won his singles match via a third set tie-breaker.   

In the final showdown of the day, Colquitt County faced Tift, which had narrowly defeated the Packers in their first matchup on March 4 by a score of 3-2. 

In the championship, Joshua Scroggins won his singles match, and Fountain and Sims won their doubles match, but the Packers dropped the other two. 

With the score knotted at 2-2, the conference title came down to Taunton and Azar, who won the first set 7-6, despite falling behind 5-3.

The pair then dropped the first 3 games of the second set, and trailed 5-2 before winning five games in a row, completing the comeback and sealing the victory for the host team.

¨I couldn´t be more proud of these boys,¨ Shivers said, adding, ¨We knew there was no guarantee, but I was confident that if we played the way we were capable, we had a good chance.¨

The boys’ tennis team also includes Parker Anderson, Ivan Dong and Aiden Nunez.

¨The ceiling for these kids is very high,” Shivers said. “I hope they will keep working hard and keep improving the way they have this season. The future is bright for Colquitt County tennis.¨