ROCKINGHAM – At the onset of the 2018 girls tennis season, Richmond Senior High School head coach Mike Way knew one thing — he had a strong team made up of nearly all seniors. Other than that, the season would have to play itself out.
And play itself out it did, as the Lady Raiders impressed with a second-place finish in the Sandhills Athletic Conference standings, and racked up the program’s best record (12-4, 10-1 SAC) in recent memory. The tennis season was a whirlwind of postponements and cancellations because of Hurricanes Florence and Michael, but Richmond didn’t let them affect its play, as the Lady Raiders coasted through the majority of the season on an 11-match winning streak, the longest in program history.
“It was a successful season,” Way said in review of his third season at the helm. “The girls worked hard and were able to see some good results come out of it. At the same time, we are realistic in our expectations, both going into the season and while it is going on.
“The teams that compete for state titles are full of players who have been devoted solely to tennis since they were four or five years old,” he added. “Our kids start playing in the tenth or eleventh grade.”
While that may seem like a disadvantage for Richmond’s players, perhaps that lack of experience worked in the Lady Raiders’ favor. Way expressed throughout the course of the season that his “group of athletes” brought its competitive edge to each match, which allowed them to compete for a program-best in single-season wins.
Seven of Richmond’s eight players this fall were seniors, and as Way noted, none of them make tennis her first sport. Seniors this year were Morgan Hooks, Jayana Nicholson, Taylor Parrish, Emily Parsons, Greyson Way, Chloe Wiggins and Ashley Yepez. Together, along with lone junior Emily Buie, they’ll go down in the record books as the greatest Lady Raider tennis team (in terms of overall record) in school history. And for Way, he couldn’t be prouder of their accomplishments.
“This is the part that is tough, especially when one of them is mine,” he explained, mentioning his daughter Greyson. “They all become like your kids, and you want to see them do as well as they possibly can. It will be tough to replace the group this year, especially their toughness and the desire that they played with.”
When the season started in the middle of August, the Lady Raiders dropped three of their first four matches, two to non-conference opponents East Montgomery and Pine Forest high schools, and the other to 2018 SAC champion Pinecrest High School. While the beginning looked grim, Way knew that facing perennial powerhouse programs would pay off in the long run — which happened to come in the form of the 11-match winning streak.
From Aug. 28 through the senior night match on Oct. 8 against Purnell Swett High School, Richmond made easy work of all of its opponents, beating most schools handedly. The closest the Lady Raiders came to defeat during that stretch was against SAC foe Jack Britt High School, which finished second in the SAC last season, but the green and gold escaped with two 5-4 victories over the Lady Buccaneers. As the season and the streak continued, the likelihood of accomplishing the preseason goal of finishing second in the conference became a reality.
“That is one of the goals that we had for the season,” Way said of finishing second. “But we can never be satisfied because then you stop trying. You don’t always judge your season by where you finish, but that was certainly a positive step for us.
“The first defining moment for us as a team this season was the way we responded to some early setbacks,” he continued. “We were 1-3 and could have just said ‘the heck with it,’ but the girls were determined to do better. The desire to improve was my favorite part of this team.”
Richmond lost its only SAC contest to Pinecrest in the early going, and the streak allowed the team to make its way back to the NCHSAA 4A state playoffs. Last year, Richmond took down Pine Forest in the opening round, marking the program’s first career playoff victory. This season the Lady Raiders weren’t so lucky, as they fell to Apex Friendship High School in the first round, halting the 11-match winning streak and ending the team’s season.
Nicholson and Greyson Way flip-flopped as the team’s No. 1 and No. 2 players, and earned a second-straight appearance as a doubles tandem in the regional round of the state playoffs. The team was also aided by Parsons, Wiggins and Parrish, who consistently battled in the three, four and five seed matches, respectively. Way noted that regardless of which seed his players competed in, and no matter what school was on the other side of the net, his Lady Raiders put their best effort forward and put the program on the map.
“Being relevant is obviously something that we strive for, so to be seen as one of the better teams, even in our conference, is a good thing,” he concluded. “When sports are overlooked (like tennis is sometimes), it becomes even harder to get kids to participate. There are some really valuable life lessons to be learned through competition, and the more kids we can involve the better off we will be.”
Next season is a bit of a question mark at this point with the loss of the seven seniors, but for now, Way is going to enjoy the successes of the 2018 season.
