2 weeks Ago
Senior Night had a celebratory feel to it Tuesday for the South Aiken boys' tennis team, as six of the team's 12 players were honored for their contributions to the program ahead of their upcoming graduation. The T-Breds are hopeful that celebration was the first of many. The Class AAAA playoffs start next week, and South Aiken will be one of the favorites to bring home a state title.
"This is my third year coaching, and I would say this is definitely the strongest we've had our team so far," said head coach Dee Dee Redd. "With us losing those six seniors, this is our best run for state possible. We've really tried to play - we've played our region matches, and I've reached out to as many higher (classification) teams that we possibly can, a lot of the 5A schools, to try to kind of get them ready for a playoff situation.
" South Aiken (15-3, 10-0) finished off an undefeated run through Region 4-AAAA with Tuesday's 5-1 win over Aiken. Their only losses came to Spring Valley, River Bluff and Dreher, those first two coming against teams ranked in the top five of the South Carolina High School League's RPI metric in Class AAAAA. The T-Breds were ranked fourth in Class AAAA following Tuesday's win, which would project them to be the second seed in the Lower State bracket behind Bishop England.
The playoffs are scheduled to begin next Tuesday. Despite all of those seniors, this is still a young team - the T-Breds' top singles players are underclassmen, but they're all familiar with big-match environments. They developed that in playoff matches over the last couple of years, then again during the regular season this year as Redd tried to make the non-region schedule as difficult as possible, not to mention the benefit from playing against one another in practice.
"That's the goal," she said. "Other people have commented about how we practice hard. When my guys get out there, they don't get tired.
Their endurance level is amazing. We've got a lot of hard hitters, which makes any of my players get better and better with the harder-playing hits all the time." Freshman David Baker leads the way at No.
1 singles, a spot he would've occupied in both his seventh- and eighth-grade seasons if not for Rowan Degnan transferring in and leading the team. Not that it's mattered to Baker, who has an 11-3 record this season despite typically playing opponents much older than him. "David's play, his maturity, every bit of his tennis ability has gotten so much stronger, and the growth I've seen in him is absolutely amazing," said Redd.
"As a player, as a person, extremely well-rounded. ..
. He is one of the most self-motivated people I've ever been around. I've been a teacher for 24 years now, and academically, athletically, in every aspect, David is definitely a high achiever in his own right.
He's the one that puts that pressure on himself to make sure everything goes well." Junior Kiyu Hughes has been steady in the No. 2 spot, going 10-2 there with a couple more wins in other spots in the lineup, like at No.
1 last week against Aiken when Baker was unavailable. Freshman Coda Hughes is also 12-2 overall, with a 9-1 record at No. 3 singles, and senior Landen Reagan is 13-3 overall with eight wins at No.
5, four at No. 4 and one at No. 3.
Xander Leigh has been Mr. Versatility in the lineup, with seven wins at No. 2 doubles, four at No.
5 singles and one at No. 1 singles against Airport. Needless to say, moving up a spot or two in the order wasn't going to faze these T-Breds.
"I think the benefit is, during the season obviously you want all of your top line to play as much as possible, but there's always situations where somebody can't make it," Redd explained. "They've become accustomed to having to move up a spot. Like last week, David was sick when we played Aiken.
That being our rival, we want to have the best chance possible, so Kiyu moved up to the No. 1 spot last week and played and won beautifully at 6-2, 6-2. "They've gotten used to having to move up and step up.
One of the hardest positions to do that is our No. 6, because they're used to playing doubles. That's Xander Leigh, and he has to be accustomed to, if we need him to bump up to singles, he's ready to bump to singles.
He has to be in that spot that goes back and forth quite a bit." They'll look to continue to move up - or forward, in the case of the playoff bracket - and step up over the coming weeks, with one last, big celebration in mind for the senior class..
