Tourney tune-up

The Smith-Cotton High boys tennis team saw a close match slip away against conference opponent Kansas City O’Hara on Wednesday at Liberty Park.

The Tigers fell to the Celtics 4-5 in their last action before Friday’s S-C Invitational.

The afternoon began with doubles matches. The duo of Josh Melton and Adam Tilley proved too tough for O’Hara’s Matt Falke and Kyle Quirk. Melton and Tilley provided the Tigers’ only doubles victory of the afternoon, defeating their opponents 8-5.

Chris Shepard and Matt Roehrs were defeated 5-8 by Cory Palmer and Jake Farell. Anthony Tsao and Ryan Bell lost to Dan O’Conell and Robert Vaccaro 3-8.

The Tigers split singles matches with the Celtics with each team receiving three wins.

No. 6 Melton snagged the first singles victory for the Tigers by defeating Vaccano 8-1.

No. 5 Bell then defeated Falke 8-5, earning his first varsity win of the season.

“It was good, I felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders,” Bell said.

No. 2 Shepard followed up Melton and Bell’s wins with a back and forth tie-break victory over O’Hara’s Farrell. Shepard and his opponent traded games and became knotted at 8-8. Shepard kept his composure and ended the match with a 7-2 victory in the additional game.

No.1 Roehrs could not hold off O’Hara’s Cory Palmer and was defeated 9-7. Palmer battled back from Roehr’s 6-3 advantage to claim the match by the necessary two games.

No. 3. Tsao lost to Anthony Walker 6-8 and No. 4 Dustin Bergman fell 1-8 to O’Connell.

The Tigers’ home tournament on Friday will feature two singles and two doubles entries from seven schools. Scheduled to attend the tournament are Duchesne, Helias, Jefferson City, Lee’s Summit, Marshall and Stoutland.

Coach Kaley Hobbs is optimistic about her team’s chances. “I expect good things from our doubles teams; I think they will play well. We are definitely going up against some tough teams, but I really think we have a chance,” Hobbs said.