Spartanburg Day Wins 5-4 Squeaker Over Hilton Head Prep To Earn SCISA AAA Tennis Title
By Billy G. Baker
Publisher
Spartanburg—Spartanburg Day varsity tennis coach Bob Allsbrook is returning a text from this writer while 30,000 feet in the air, on a flight to Barbados, where he has come to spend two weeks to work as a tennis instructor to guests at the resort island where he will also be staying.
A month earlier, Coach Allsbroook was coaching the Spartanburg Day Boy’s tennis team to their second straight championship win over traditional power Hilton Head Prep at the Cayce Tennis Center in Columbia. The hard-fought matches lasted for nearly five hours and the Griffins finally won 5-4 with a win in number two doubles at the very end of the 9 match event.
“Last year with SCISA realignment we were never in the same classification with Hilton Head Prep so we never played each other,” said Coach Allsbrook, who has been involved in the sport of tennis for most of his life, even playing on the pro tour for a while. “Our players got upset last season when witnessed one of the Hilton Head parents showing off some cupcakes she had made that was already congratulating them for winning the state championship, and that gave the team extra juice, and we won like five of the six singles matches.
“So, we knew they would come loaded for bear this season, and they did for sure,” said Coach Allsbrook. “We spilt the six singles matches 3-3 and we had split two of the doubles matches so it was 4-4 with our number two doubles team left on the court in the last match.”
During a break in the final match of the day, Coach Allsbrook went over to give a pep talk to Nathan Harris who was teamed with number one singles player Charlie Forgerty in the last doubles match of the competition. “I went over to Nathan and told him, You got this!”
A short while later Harris hit a return volley shot for the game winner helping lift the Griffins to a 5-4 win, their second straight SCISA AAA win over Hilton Head Prep that had not lost a state title match in quite a while, prior to last year.
The six-man singles team consisted of sophomore Charlie Fogerty at one single. He won his state title match 6-2, 6-2. Bradley Johnson Jr won at two singles 6-3 and 6-2. Price Nelson won at three singles 7-5 and 6-4.
Hilton Head Prep won the next three matches over number four senior Lane Greer, number fiver Harris and number six Griffins performer Bennett Johnson, an 8th grader, who lost in close competitive matches.
John and Nelson played number one doubles while Johnson and Greer played number three doubles. Those matches went 1-1 so the two doubles team of Forgerty and Harris decided the match.
“Winning this year was even sweeter because we didn’t sneak up on them this year,” said Coach Allsbrook. “They brought a lot more fans with them this year also. We are losing two seniors to graduation but we have several up-and-coming players as good as the one’s we are losing. These two up and coming players are freshman Henry Gosnell and 7th grader Parker Wilson.”
Coach Allsbrook said that none of the six players who competed in the state finals had lost a match this season. Since 1987 Coach Allsbrook has won 20 state titles high school tennis, 13 of them have been with teams from Spartanburg Day.
“I guess we will meet Hilton Head Prep in the state finals once again next season and we know that both teams will bring their A game for sure,” he said. “I tell my players all the time that you can’t go undefeated if you don’t win the match, you are currently competing in.”
