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March 14, 2004
PRINCESS ANNE, MD - The UMES Hawks Tennis squad squared off against the Bears of Morgan State U. on the home courts in Princess Anne Maryland. Morgan State has a strong experienced team, taking the match 5-2. The Fighting Hawks are improving steadily in the second season under Head Coach Doug Wright. The Men's team particularly showed their HAWK PRIDE on their recent trip to Orlando FL. to play five dual matches. "During every match we played I heard comments from opposing coaches and tournament officials on how strong our players looked against the biggest hitters in the conference"- Coach Wright "The scores don't reflect how close some of these matches were." "Our players have improved their stroke consistency and power, now they need to focus more on strategy and closing out sets, they're headed in the right direction." -Coach Wright
Morgan State was short one player due to a knee injury. So the UMES Hawks won the third doubles and the sixth singles by default. If we could win one of the remaining doubles matches, we would gain valuable momentum and a nice lead heading into the singles. Brandon Jackson and Lamar Sutton played a good solid match but were outplayed with powerful serving and returning from the MSU #1 doubles. Rob Schneider and George Ray surprised the Bears at #2 doubles, by jumping out to an early 4-1 lead. Ray kept his concentration, fighting off three break points to hold serve. The MSU team regrouped and played higher percentage tennis taking the lead 6-4. Schneider and Ray held serve with some excellent wide serves and aggressive net play to close the gap to 6-5. The tension was high and so was the level of play. But the Bears were able to close out the match 8-5.
The singles matches got underway. Brandon Jackson battled a powerful baseline player. When he was able to plant his feet on his backhand side he blasted it. Brandon continued to be in every game, playing long rallies and mixing up amazing short angles on occasion. But in the end, the MSU #1 took the match 6-1, 6-1. Morgan won the 2nd and 3rd singles convincing, 6-1, 6-1, and 6-1, 6-0. Lamar Sutton played an outstanding second set against a very talented opponent. (Who continued to look at Lamar in disbelief, as if to say "I can't believe you made that shot.") Morgan won the second set as well as the first 6-0, 6-3. Hasika Pamanuwa took the court at the #5 position for the Hawks against Chang from MSU. Chang took the first set in a tiebreak 7-6. Hasika was able to regroup, relaxed and followed his game plan of steady smooth error free tennis. His plan worked brilliantly. Hasika won the 2nd set convincingly 6-0. The final set was extremely close from the start. Chang scrambled and ripped topspin forehand winners. Hasika kept his errors to a minimum. He was able to pass Chang nearly every time he took the net. Hasika finished out the set and the match for a UMES victory 7-5. Morgan State won the overall team match 5-2. |
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