SOUTHERN PINES — The Richmond Senior High School boys’ tennis team suffered its first Sandhills Athletic Conference loss Thursday at Pinecrest High School.
Second-year head coach Patrick Hope and the Raiders fell by a final score of 9-0, just two days after holding off Purnell Swett High School 5-4 for their first win of the spring.
Pinecrest, which is the reigning conference champion, became the third Richmond opponent this season to not allow the Raiders to earn a single match point.
“It was not the outcome we wanted, but I thought the effort was good,” Hope shared. “We had to make adjustments with Mason Bailey out of the lineup, and I thought we handled it well.
“We’ve played some good teams and the experience will pay off for us as the season goes along,” he added.
Unlike Tuesday’s win over the Rams, the Raiders didn’t see any of their singles matches end in a win or push to tiebreak sets. Richmond’s No. 1 Kevin Campos lost to Charlie Hodges 1-6, 1-6, while sophomore No. 2 Bradford Pittman dropped a closer match 4-6, 0-6 to Will Bode.
No. 3 Caleb Brewer was blanked in his two sets against Will Blackwood, 0-6, 0-6. With No. 4 Bailey out of the lineup, that pushed the bottom half of the order up, starting with sophomore Karym Ojeda filling in for Bailey.
Pinecrest’s Ryan Grafenberg defeated Ojeda 6-1, 6-1. Moving up to the No. 5 slot was Alex Yates, and his luck wasn’t any better, as he dropped his singles match to Willie Larose 1-6, 0-6.
Making his Richmond tennis debut was senior Adam Morrison, who is one of Hope’s two reserve players. He became the No. 6 player for the Raiders, and fell to James Ellman 0-6, 0-6.
In doubles action, Richmond made things much closer on the score sheet despite being swept by the Patriots. The No. 1 Raider team of Campos and Pittman battled Ellwood and Larose to a 5-8 finish.
Hope switched his next two doubles pairings up, matching Brewer with Yates in the No. 2 match, and allowing Ojeda and Morrison to work together in the No. 3 match. Like Campos and Pittman, Brewer and Yates challenged Josh Hooper and Lucas Clark, but fell 5-8.
In the No. 3 doubles, Morrison and Ojeda were blanked 0-8 by Jordan Greenblatt and Garrett Kane.
Richmond (1-3, 1-1 SAC) will host Jack Britt High School (2-0, 2-0 SAC) on Tuesday, March 12, at 4 p.m.
