NorthWood’s Brant Mast returns a shot during one doubles play at Wawasee Monday. (Photos by James Costello)

SYRACUSE — Going into her team’s Northern Lakes Conference round robin closer at Wawasee, NorthWood head coach Tiffiny Schwartz had a few instructions for her players — keep your serves in, limit the unforced errors and don’t give the Warriors many extra opportunities.

Well, the Panthers certainly weren’t giving much away Monday.

NorthWood wasted little time opposite its hosts, surrendering a total of just three games en route to a 5-0 sweep. Little more than an hour in, the Panthers had already clinched three match points at one and two doubles and two singles, and it didn’t take them too much longer to finish off the sweep in Syracuse.

“I just told them to really focus on serves,” said Schwartz. “Sometimes that seems to be the downfall. We don’t want to have too many double faults, we want to cut down on the free points and really work on — for doubles especially — getting to the net and putting balls away, not giving them second and third opportunities.”

NorthWood’s first match point was a bit of a surprise as freshman Ben Vincent put away Graham Perek, 0-0 at two singles. If the outcome wasn’t all that surprising, the swiftness of the decision was as Vincent bumped up from the Panthers’ JV lineup to replace an ill Landon Holland at the meet.

“He played a great match for us. We feel really confident with who we have as our alternates to come in if we have to have someone step in,” Schwartz said.

“He was actually the first one off the court by just a couple points. So yeah, it’s very nice to be able to have that as a backup if we need it.”

NorthWood’s Ben Vincent gets set during two singles.

The Warriors made some adjustments to their own lineup at the meet, with senior Jake Cowen swapping with Zach Leedy between three singles and two doubles alongside Even Richey, while Perek bumped up to two singles. Cowen took two games from NorthWood’s Jack Wysong at three singles before falling, 6-1, 6-1. Wawasee’s only other game came at one singles where Dylan Staley fell 6-0, 6-1 to Wes Troyer.

“Dylan Staley, his mindset, if he wins his first couple he’s hard to beat. He’s one of those guys that once he gets rolling he’s good. He has a lot of unforced errors and gives a lot of points away,” explained Warriors head coach Vince Rhodes.

Jared Hoffman and Brant Mast put away Brady Robinson and Jacob Krugman, 6-0, 6-0, at one doubles, and Trevor Klotz and Trajan Schwartz shut out Leedy and Richey 6-0, 6-0, at two doubles in the NLC round robin finale for both squads.

“These guys have improved a ton. This is probably the most improvement I’ve seen from one year to the next with a group right here,” said Rhodes of NorthWood.

Dylan Staley runs down a ball for Wawasee.

NorthWood heads into the NLC Tournament Wednesday with a 10-4 overall record and a single loss in NLC play to Concord back on Aug. 24. That loss was a disappointing one and a turning point for the Panthers, who ran out the rest of their NLC slate.

“I think after our Concord match, we all decided that we didn’t like the outcome of that match; we didn’t like how it ended. We were 1-4 and had opportunities,” recalled Tiffiny Schwartz. “That was where it went, and we just decided you know what? We need to do something. We need to make a change if we want to go far in the conference.”

Wawasee closes out its NLC record with a mirror-image 4-10, 1-6 NLC record. The conference tournament draw takes place Tuesday at NorthWood.