A sense of team can be difficult to build in a sport like tennis, where individual effort plays such a big role and no more than two teammates ever compete together.
It's not uncommon for high school tennis players to focus completely on themselves and how they do personally on any given day.
But the players on the Reeths-Puffer boys tennis team apparently have a pretty tight bond.
Adam Miller, the Rockets’ No. 2 singles player, was engaged in the longest match of the day on Monday on R-P’s courts. He split the first two sets with Lowell’s Gavin Stewart and the match went all the way to a third-set tiebreaker.
R-P's Adam Miller
Most of the other Rockets were done with their matches and gathered to cheer for Miller as he battled to a hard-fought 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 victory.
That was the final win on a great day for the Rockets, who swept all eight matches from Lowell in their best performance of the season so far.
“(Miller’s) match lasted 45 minutes longer than any other flight, and the verbal encouragement he received from his teammates resulted in Adam winning a hard-fought mental battle,” said R-P Coach Ryan Hankinson.
“As a coach, watching young men support their teammate to the degree that so many of them did was maybe the highlight of the season so far. This band of individuals is learning the collective power of unity.”
Miller’s win was the most difficult of the day. The Rockets won every other match in straight sets.
Also picking up victories for R-P were Quinn Alderink (No. 1 singles), Cade Paugh (No. 3 singles), Cory Judd (No. 4 singles), Holden Earnest and Ethan Frang (No. 1 doubles), Trent VanDam and Adam Schrumpf (No. 2 doubles), Owen Schrumpf and Jackson Baldus (No. 3 doubles) and Travis Clockman and Preston Singleton (No. 4 doubles).
