Valley’s Seth Hoffman returns a shot during one singles play in a home meet with Knox Wednesday. (Photos by James Costello)

AKRON —  Trailing a set and with visiting Knox having already clinched the three match points the Redskins needed for the team win, the Vikings showed some fight on two courts Wednesday.

Garrett Feldman battled back from a lopsided, 6-0, opening-set loss to split sets with Zac Eby at three singles, while Payton Mills and Dakota Parker pushed Knox one doubles opponents Ethan Cooper and Clint Stacy to a super tiebreaker at their position. Only Feldman was able to parlay that comeback into a win, but Tippy Valley head tennis coach Nick Kindig was pleased with the fight all three showed in the 4-1 loss at home.

“I’m happy with the way they competed. It would’ve been easy just to roll over,” said Kindig. “Our one doubles team, they’ve been playing a lot of close matches this year so I expected that out of them, for them to compete. Garrett losing the first set, 6-0, to come back and win, that’s good for us, and it’ll make us better in the long run.”

Garrett Feldman prepares to serve during three singles play Wednesday.

Feldman was swept in his first set but settled in in the second for a convincing 6-2 win over Eby. With the team result a foregone conclusion, another meet slated for Thursday and daylight disappearing in Akron, the coaches made the decision to decide the match via super tiebreaker format. Feldman trumped Eby by a close 10-8 margin to give his team its only match point of the night.

“He became more active. I thought early in the match he wasn’t really moving around, making his opponent move,” said Kindig of the senior three singles player. “I think he might’ve been a little bit nervous; I don’t know. But second and third set, he just went out there and just played and had the guy moving.”

Meanwhile, at one doubles, Parker and Mills came back from a 6-3 first set to hand Cooper and Stacy a loss in another competitive set, 6-4. The Valley duo held off match point twice in the super tiebreak, but a double fault stymied their momentum and gave the Redskins the win, 10-7.

“They played really well the second set and the tiebreaker. They’ve got a lot to work on, but if they get their serves better and work on their volleys, they’re going to be fine,” Kindig said. “They’ve improved so much from the beginning of the year, and hopefully they continue to improve.”

Dakota Parker serves during one doubles play.

Jeremy Landis and Connor Frentzel were also more competitive in their second set versus Ethan Sander and Devan Himes at two doubles, taking three games before falling 6-0, 6-3. Eric Wright wound up on the wrong end of a 6-4, 6-1 decision to Jake Krueger at two singles, while Seth Hoffman fell 6-2, 6-0 to Eian Coad at one singles.

Valley (2-7) takes on another HNAC opponent in LaVille tonight. The Vikings are using a break from Three Rivers Conference play as an opportunity to sharpen up for a highly competitive TRC schedule, which they won’t resume until Sept. 11 when they travel to Rochester.

“Our conference is really competitive this year so we’re just trying to get better every match and in practices, because this is the most competitive I’ve seen our conference even since I was in high school. Rochester is really good, Maconaquah is really good, Wabash, Peru. To get to that level we’ve got to get better every day, using these matches to get better,” said Kindig.