The Bulldog and Lady Bulldog tennis teams may have come up just short of their ultimate goal of a pair of District 4-AAAAA championships this week, but they’ll have the chance Saturday to earn a few individual crowns.
The Artesia netters travelled Monday and Tuesday to Lovington and Goddard for the D4 Team Tournament finals, with the ‘Dogs falling to the Wildcats and the Lady ‘Dogs to the Lady Rockets by identical finals of 2-5.
“I don’t think the overall match count really is indicative of the performances we had,” head coach Tim Trentham said today.
In tennis, the host team – which is the higher seed in tournament play – is allowed to choose whether they prefer to begin with singles or doubles play. And with the Artesia teams’ doubles groups being their strengths, both Lovington and Goddard elected to open with singles.
“We didn’t get a chance to really put pressure on them,” Trentham said. “But you try to put your opponent up against the wall by making them have to win more matches in singles, and we were down 2-4 going into doubles with both the boys and girls.
“It was just a lot of pressure on our doubles groups, and both teams had two matches finish up very early.”
The Bulldogs and Lady Bulldogs have put the outings behind them, however, in preparation for Saturday’s District 4-AAAAA Individual Tournament.
There, each team selects two singles players and two doubles teams, which are seeded 1-8 in brackets. The top three singles and top three doubles teams advance to the Class 5A State Individual Tournament.
“You could potentially have a No. 6 singles player competing in the same bracket as No. 1 player,” said Trentham, “but I think we have a great opportunity. I think we could definitely send four on both sides.”
Competition is set to begin at 8 a.m. Saturday in Lovington.
The Artesia teams – who both qualified for the Class 5A State Team Tournament with their runner-up finishes – will then turn their sights to Albuquerque, where action will take place May 4-7 at the Jerry Cline Tennis Center, Albuquerque Academy, and the Sierra Vista West Tennis Complex.