LINDEN — Fountain Central boys tennis coach Chris Webb was slightly worried about a hangover for his Mustangs as FC took on North Montgomery on Tuesday. Just the night before FC came away with a thrilling 3-2 win over fellow Montgomery County foe Southmont. FC quickly dismissed Webb’s worry and convincingly defeated the Chargers in a 5-0 sweep to remain a perfect 4-0 on the season.
“We talked with the team before the match more about how we weren’t going to focus on the score, we were more concerned with our footwork after having tired legs from the Southmont game,” Webb said. “There’s still some work left to do in that area, but overall we were much improved in that area.”
At one singles for the Mustangs Skyler Hoagland defeated the Chargers Beckett Martin 6-0, 6-0. Gabe McCollum earned a 6-1, 6-3 win for the Mustangs over Hayden Turner at two singles. At three singles Noah Armstrong was victorious over Alex Chapman 6-1, 6-1. At one doubles Brayden Prickett and Koby Wolf earned a 6-2, 6-3 win over the Chargers Brookes Walters and Nate McCoy. Lastly Wes Jackson and Lukas Miller defeated Haze Kashon and Owen Utterback 6-3, 6-1 at two doubles.
“Fountain Central doesn’t beat themselves and Coach Webb does a terrific job of preparing his team,” Chargers assistant coach Steve Baldwin said. “You have to tip your cap to them for the way they play and approach the game. For us we’re playing better tennis, our problem is just we’re not trusting ourselves. When we make a mistake we’re real tentative on not making that same mistake so we play not to lost instead of playing to win. Our guys have improved immensely over the last year and it’s unfortunate for our guys because we feel like we probably should be 2-2 this year.”
Another victory for the Mustangs has seen them defeat all three Montgomery County schools in their first week-plus of action. Throw in a 5-0 win over Frankfort and Webb has enjoyed the start that his team has had but also knows that the season only gets tougher.
“This is two straight years where we have looked at our schedule and didn’t really know what to anticipate as far as our record goes,” Webb said. “I probably would have said at the beginning of the year we’d have to do some mixing and matching with our lineups but both our doubles teams are 4-0. I’m hoping we’ve found the right combination of guys already but there’s still a lot of tennis left to be played. We want to make sure we’re not playing our best tennis in August. I love where we’re at but hopefully the level of where we’re at continues to grow.”
North Montgomery will have a few days off before hosting their North Montgomery Invite on Saturday while FC will host Benton Central on Thursday.
