Pisgah’s Allison Merrell returns a ball during Tuesday’s match against Smoky Mountain in Canton.
CANTON – Tennis is a game of reflexes.
Whether the thinking required for shot-making is quick or deliberate, the Pisgah girls have got it handled.
The Black Bears boast a weighted grade-point average of 4.39 amongst their 16 players.
Let that sink in, along with the fact that the girls from Haywood County are 5-2 overall and 5-0 in the Western North Carolina Conference after a marathon 5-4 match with visiting Smoky Mountain on Tuesday afternoon.
“Our final record was 2-12 last year, so that gives you a good idea of how much things have changed,” fourth-year coach Harold Shepard said.
“They were all first-timers last year and it showed. But they’ve played and gotten better. We want to get better every year.”
All this trail-blazing is coming from not a single player in the top-six who is a senior. They are junior Cheyanne King (3-4), sophomore Allie Fisher (4-3), freshman Maeanna Norris (6-1), sophomore Carli Styles (6-1), sophomore Brooke Garland (5-2) and junior Megan Rathbone (4-1).
Twelth-graders on the roster are Allison Merrill, Autumn Dillingham and Thea Boone. The next match for the Black Bears is Thursday at Brevard (5-1, 5-0).
“It’s a really cool feeling to have this kind of season,” Fisher said.
“We’ve had a lot more fans. Before, we barely had any. We are bringing more people in and getting (tennis) more popular.”
Pisgah was beaten handily in a couple early-season nonconference matches (8-1 at Carolina Day on Aug. 18) and (6-3 at home against Enka on Aug. 24). The next scheduled match for the team is Thursday at Brevard.
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