The Greeley West boys tennis team had their final home match and their senior night last Tuesday, destroying their cross-town rivals Greeley Central, 6-1.
The Spartans had a tough start to the year facing some of the top teams in Colorado and started off 0-5 on the season. Then, they defeated Northridge 6-1 and placed
11th in the Greeley West Tennis Invitational. Head coach Ryan Pace voiced his thoughts on their 0-5 start and how that will affect them for the rest of their season. “I think one of the things with our team is we started out with a really hard schedule and we did that purposefully after a two-year cycle and we lost some close matches and we just weren’t quite there yet…I don’t really think that we were really a 0-5 team. It was more schedule based and now I wouldn’t be surprised to see us win out and get back to .500,” Pace said.
Against Central, No. 1 singles player Emmit Richardson won against the defending conference champion and swept him in two sets. Head Coach Pace expressed his thoughts about how the match will affect the rest of the season coming up. “They look great out there and the depth is there and the 6 seniors played yesterday and they are all integral parts of our program. It was cool to see them whoop up on Central and it was really fun to watch that. We are really excited for the rest of the season,” Pace said.
Richardson improved to 6-1 on the season leading the team in wins overall. The team improved their record to 2-5 and also improved their ranking in 5A NCAC standings to second overall. Pace voiced his thoughts on how the rest of their season will take the team.
“I told them that we are going to be better because we have played teams that hit the ball much harder and have this much more strategy… so I think that we are that much better and I think that we have the chance to make some state qualifiers because we have played a hard schedule,” Pace said.
“The other teams in Greeley aren’t even close, so it is nice to say that we own Greeley tennis and the next goal is to take it to Fort collins or Boulder,” Pace said.
