The sun was shining down on the Maclay tennis courts as the varsity Marauders boys and girls team had a match against the Florida High Seminoles at Maclay on Monday, Feb. 27. The Maclay girls won in doubles and the boys lost in the doubles.
When the match began head coach Mary Phillips Smith welcomed both teams to the court while the players lined up. Senior Emily Macri and sophomore Megan Vegas are ranked number one and two on the team, and they had to face the Seminoles top two players. On the court next to Macri and Vegas, junior Maria Boulos and seventh grader Autumn Daniels played eight games on the court. All four Lady Marauders won their double matches. Macri and Vegas won 8-1, and Boulos and Daniels won 8-3
“I am going to move my feet more because it is windy so that is actually a big factor and the ball movement,” Vegas said.
On the boys side, Junior Bradely Carnes is ranked number one for the Marauders. He played with junior Rowan Gray in their doubles match and lost 8-1 to the Seminoles. Next to them playing on the court was senior Oakley Deison and sophomore John Fletcher Butler who also lost 8-1 in their doubles match.
“I think I started off pretty rough but I got better as I went,” Macri said.
Some of the Marauders team was not able to play due to an injury, being sick or forgetting their uniform. Although Florida High had some younger team players, they were still athletic on the courts. In the singles matches the Florida High guys team crushed the Marauders, but on the other hand the Lady Marauders crushed the Florida High girls team. Carnes, Gray, Deison, junior Jake Lyon and eighth grader Matthew D’Silva all played in singles matches and they all lost. Carnes had a close match and the final score of his match was 9-7 only losing by two points. For the girls, Macri won her singles match 8-2, Vegas won 8-1, Daniels won 8-1 and junior Anissa Lakshmin won her singles match 8-0.
“I thought we had a strong doubles performance,” head coach Smith said. “I think we are getting better at doubles all the time. One of our big focuses has been attacking from the net in doubles and I saw definite progress in that today. I think we had a good doubles match.”
Both the girls and boys team have 10 matches left before playoffs.
