LHS netters fall on the road, 11-8

Ashley Perkins

The Lampasas High School tennis team opened its match against Pflugerville quickly Friday with strong doubles play, but a late Pflugerville surge in singles spelled an 11-8 loss for LHS.

LHS took a 4-3 lead into the singles portion of the match. Zach McKenzie and Phillip McLain captured a 10-7 victory in No. 1 doubles. The tandems of Stanley Smith and Dustin Hause and Alex Miller and Kayla Krueger each captured 10-7 victories. The team of Ashley Perkins and Ciara Salazar registered a 10-3 win, despite Perkins seeing her first action since being sidelined with an illness.

"We started out quick again, and the kids really played well in doubles," LHS head coach Kenneth Peiser said. "In the three days leading up to the match, we really worked on coming to the net, playing aggressive and attacking with volleys. They did a great job of that in their matches."

Lampasas lost its first six singles matches to fall behind 9-4, but Stanley Smith, Jordan Langford, Salazar and Hause each recorded singles wins to pull LHS to 9-8.

Zach McKenzie

"I felt like we did some things well today," Peiser said. "They played hard, served pretty well and came to the net beautifully. I can't really single out one player who played better because all of them came in and did what was asked of them, and they all had some success with it."