Panthers Can’t Find Momentum In NLC Contest
By Mike Deak
InkFreeNews
NAPPANEE – It’s to be expected as spring sports unroll themselves. NorthWood girls tennis head coach Tif Schwartz is learning to come to grips with some of the growing pains.
Her squad showed its court inexperience in a 4-1 loss to visiting Plymouth Thursday evening in the Panthers’ first match in nearly a week.
“That’s been a big struggle for us, but we knew we would likely jump into conference right away with no matches under our belts,” Schwartz said. “You’d want at least a couple, but we have been rained out or some kind of weather for much of our start, and this is just our third match of the year. When you don’t play for two years and only two girls return, that’s a lot to ask for these young kids.”
The fluidity to which NorthWood lacked Thursday was a big component in the Pilgrims winning all the singles courts in straight sets. Miranda German rolled to a 6-1, 6-1 win over Gabriella Umbower at one singles, the Plymouth senior playing in what seems like 14 years for the squad after starting as a freshman and long since been a stalwart for the Big Red lineup. German is the defending No. 2 singles champion in the Northern Lakes Conference.
Aubrey Vervynckt also took advantage of court movement, running Britton Jesse around enough to claim a 6-1, 6-2 victory on the No. 2 court. Vervynckt, a junior, was the NLC three singles champion in 2019.
Bella Kain did much of the same a court east, beating Ashlyn Feller 6-1, 6-3, on the three singles grid.
“It’s hard, we have 34 girls in the program and most of them don’t have varsity experience,” Schwartz said. “We just have a lot we are working with. Not that Plymouth is exceptionally more experienced than us, they have a lot of younger players, too, but we really looked like a team that’s only been on the court a few times so far.”
NorthWood’s experience played on the No. 1 doubles court, where seniors Paige Henschen and Kate Stillson took on Plymouth sophomores Taylor Delp and Ellie Jones. But while the NorthWood duo have had varsity time, the Plymouth duo did the little things to garner a 6-4, 7-6 (5) victory. For all of the balls NorthWood returned into the net, Plymouth had an exceptional series of smart shots to score points, Delp finding corners regularly and Jones holding the net well.
The Panthers did pick up a court, taking No. 2 doubles 6-1, 6-3 behind the play of Emery Porter and Amy Adams. In working over Annie Plothow and Cassidy Riddle, NorthWood’s tandem played well at the net and limited its second service errors as Plymouth struggled on the opposite of the court.
“I feel like we are all starting over,” Schwartz said. “It’s not just a NorthWood issue. Plymouth had five girls out there that haven’t played varsity until this year. I know other teams we will see here are young, too. A lot of the teams coming in we don’t know the names. Usually you get a sense where you kinda know where a team is strong at. We didn’t have that with Plymouth today, and really, Brad (Haeck, Plymouth head coach) didn’t have that with us. We both had to just kinda send the girls out there and see. Until we can get a few more of these, build a lineup we like, today’s results might happen a couple times.”
NorthWood did, however, stonewall Plymouth in the JV courts, winning 13 of the 14 matchups.
NorthWood (1-2, 1-1 NLC) will host Mishawaka Friday in a make-up from Tuesday.