Jeff Linville | The Mount Airy News

Surry Central’s Abby Samuels tracks the path of her backhand shot Thursday. Samuels defeated Allie Hawks 6-3, 6-2 on Senior Night.

slideshow

DOBSON — Surry Central beat East Surry 6-3 in a tennis match much closer than the final score.

The teams were tied 3-3 after singles play, which featured three tiebreakers occurring one right after the other.

The Lady Eagles won all three doubles matches, but none by more than three points, before celebrating Senior Night for Savannah Wilson, Megan Gillespie and Abby Samuels.

“That’s the first time we’ve beaten East Surry in three years,” said Central Coach Dennis Miller. He was pleased with how his squad played, especially in doubles.

The matches started about 4:40 p.m. and lasted until about 9 p.m.

Wilson didn’t play against Mount Airy on Wednesday, and Miller rested her for singles play Thursday.

Like the day before, the other five starters moved up a spot, and Sommer Chilton played the sixth seed.

East’s number one, Lauren Thompson, beat Marlee Wilmoth 6-1, 6-0, but the other five courts saw close play.

It looked like East Surry would have an easy victory on court three as Haley Manuel swept Kennedy Dockery 6-0 in a fast first set.

Then Dockery got hot with her ground strokes and pulled out a 6-2 second set to force a third-set tiebreaker.

The two played points so quickly that they were about to start their third set as the two adjacent matches were playing first-set tiebreakers.

Manuel raced out to a 7-2 lead and took the tiebreaker 10-4. With Thompson’s win, East was up 2-0.

On court two, Central’s Gillespie and East’s Brooke Tickle were close throughout the first set and played to a 6-6 tie. Tickle took the tiebreaker, but Gillespie came back to win the second set 7-5 and forced a third-set tiebreaker, too. Gillespie won that set 10-1.

At the fourth seeds, Central’s Mikayla Cox ran off three straight matches before Tiffany King fought back to earn a tie.

Cox was ahead 4-2 in the tiebreaker before King took five of six points for a 7-5 win.

On court five, Samuels won 6-3, 6-2 against East’s Allie Hawks.

And Chilton won the sixth-seed match 6-1, 7-6 over Hannah Haynes as Central tied the match 3-3.

In doubles play, the Eagles edged ahead in all three matches.

Wilmoth and Chilton beat Tickle and Manuel 10-8.

Dockery and Cox avenged their singles losses with a 10-7 win over Thompson and King. These two wins gave the home team the match with one doubles team left to go.

Wilson played in doubles and teamed with fellow senior Gillespie for an 8-5 win over Hawks and Haynes.

East Coach Mike Kiser said his team looked rusty since the girls haven’t been able to play or practice in a week because of rain. Still, he was pleased that his squad played hard and showed hustle.

Surry Central improved to 8-8 overall and 7-7 in the Northwest Conference.

East Surry is 6-6 and still has two rainouts to make up with Bishop McGuinness and South Stokes. Time is an issue now as the conference tournament starts Tuesday for both the 1A and 2A sides.

East Surry will be at Mount Airy High School for the 1A bracket, while Central is at Mount Airy Middle School for the 2A side.