As the final games of the day began, rain started to fall. The matches and tournament were cancelled soon after.

The team of two doubles, made up of Ty George and Ali Azeem, won 3rd place when the match was rained out. Almost every other flight didn’t place above 4th. Overall, the Ranger JV tennis team didn’t bode well today at the JV Tennis Fall Classic at Rockford High School and North Rockford Middle School.

Most of FHC’s teams were forced to play Forest Hills Northern in the first round. Forest Hills Northern is stacked with talent this year as the one doubles flight of Joey Killman and Advith Reddy and the fifth doubles flight of Nick Vermeulen and Grant Bardelli lost in round one of the tournament. The only team to win in the first round was a makeshift one doubles team of Seth Mosentine and Owen Thamban who subbed in for Reeths-Puffer’s one doubles flight.

“I think we came out a little bit flat today and that caused us to start slow in our first few matches,” coach Chris Tippett said. “We had a few teams play extremely well for parts of their match but we didn’t quite string it all together into a full match.”

The Rangers were having trouble handling the ground shots from opponents early as well. Many serve returns hit the net in the early games as flights like three doubles of Alex Reed and Andrew Tebeau lost 8-0 in their first match.

“We still make too many mistakes when trying to hit [ground strokes],” Tippett said.”We give up some free points because of it.”

The Rangers did pick it up in later matches. The one and two doubles flights won their second matches. The three doubles team picked it up as well.

“In our second match, we really picked it up,” sophomore Tyler George said. “We got off to a hot start and beat them 8-3 and we never slowed down from there.”

They countered their struggles in the return game with play at the net. The Rangers were aggressive at the net getting many overhead slams into the ground. Many points were won at the net by taller and quick players like Jack Lorenz and Jacob Lenfield.

“The guys were able to get into the net and play aggressive which contributed to most of the successful matches today,” Tippett said.

Sophomore Joey Killman agreed.

“I definitely think our net game was our strongest today,” Joey said.

However the boys on the team still think there is room for improvement for them against Northview on Tuesday.

“I think we just got to put some more work in on the court,” Tyler said. “Day in, day out improve as a team and as individuals and we should be good.