Brevard tennis players Cameron Wilson, Joseph Schrader and Liam Baer.
BREVARD – Back-to-back wins at Salisbury and Shelby have confirmed it — Brevard is an undefeated team’s worst nightmare in these NCHSAA 2-A dual team tennis playoffs.
The Blue Devils (15-1) once again didn’t need doubles to win Monday’s quarterfinal match at Shelby, 5-1.
Brevard got individual victories in singles from 2-A state champion Joseph Schrader, Liam Baer, Cameron Wilson, Charles Kang and Cullen Duval to sully the season of the 10-1 Golden Lions. The Western North Carolina Athletic Conference champions did the same a week earlier at Salisbury (16-1).
Brevard advances to host Newton-Conover (11-4) in Wednesday’s 2-A Western Regional championship match. The site for the 4 p.m. match depends on the weather. It will be either outdoors at Brevard College or indoors at the Brevard Racquet Club, which is owned by Blue Devils coach Mike Vandegrift.
“It all ends Saturday (with the NCHSAA 2-A championship match) and there is a lot of pressure coming down to this final week. All of our players seem to be handling it well so far. We just need to take care of business,” Vandegrift said.
“Our top-four is about as good as I’ve had in 20 years. We’re very confident about what we can do there and there’s a couple of young, first-year players who are getting better every week.”
The Blue Devils’ only loss came in nonconference play to Christ School (5-1 on March 24). The program has never won a NCHSAA championship in dual team tennis, but has been a state runner-up the past two years.
WNC’s last title in the sport was won four years ago by Hendersonville (NCHSAA 1-A).
All four of the NCHSAA championship matches will be played Saturday at the Burlington Tennis Center.
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