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By Brian Pitts

Enterprise Record

When Davie’s relentless tennis team tightened its grip on first place during a road win over Reynolds on Sept. 14, the biggest moments belonged to No. 3 Tru Koren and No. 6 Bailey Aderhold.

Both showed resiliency and battled back for tiebreaker victories. Koren dropped the first set to the same opponent that beat her on Aug. 22, but she ended up on top in a 4-6, 6-4, 10-6 slugfest.

Aderhold dropped the first set to the same opponent that beat her last month. She rallied for a 3-6, 7-5, 10-3 win because why the heck not. The unbeaten War Eagles are playing with a ton of confidence, and they buried Reynolds 7-2 after eking out a 5-4 decision in the first meeting.

“(In the first meeting), we had to win that in doubles,” coach Collin Ferebee said. “It was 3-3 going into doubles. (This time) we actually won the match before doubles started.

“Tru lost last time and was on the verge of losing this time. She turned it around, so that was big. In the back half of last season, she turned it on and was beating everyone.

“Bailey did the exact same thing. She was on the verge of losing; she flipped it around. (Koren and Aderhold) turned it from 3-3 to 5-1. The first time they were rusty; they were a little nervous. They admitted to me afterwards that they were anxious (on Aug. 22) because it was the first conference match. This time they had the confidence of beating West (Forsyth), they had the confidence of being undefeated halfway through the season, and they just took care of business.”

No. 1 Elliot Newsome (6-0, 6-0), No. 2 Karlie Quinn (6-2, 7-5) and No. 5 Leslie Newsom (6-4, 6-1) had the other singles wins as Davie extinguished the Demons’ six-match winning streak.

Quinn/Koren’s 9-7 win at No. 1 doubles was electric. Newsome/Newsom cruised 8-3 at No. 2 as Davie soared to 7-0 overall.

“You’ve got to give credit to No. 1 doubles,” Ferebee said. “Karlie wasn’t feeling good and they were down pretty much the whole set. They got down 6-7 and then won the next three games.”

The War Eagles are 5-0 in the Central Piedmont Conference, comfortably ahead of Reynolds and West Forsyth, both of which are 5-2.

Their winning streaks are a very cool thing to behold. Their regular-season streak is at 21, and their conference streak (17) is three from the program record.

“My name is attached to it, but it’s the parents and the players who do this work,” Ferebee said. “The parents bring them to me with such great attitudes and willingness to learn. It’s a testament to how hard they work for the seniors to go from 6-9 and 5-7 to going 14-1 (last year) and currently 7-0.”

Notes: Quinn and Newsom are both 7-0 in singles. Newsome and Aderhold are 6-1. Koren is 5-3 and Sarah West Marklin 4-3. … Quinn/Koren are 6-0 at No. 1 doubles. Newsome/Newsom and Marklin/Aderhold are 4-1 at Nos. 2-3 doubles, respectively.