MORGANTON — Mount Airy fell a few points shy of a repeat appearance in the 1A West Regional Championship.
The No. 10-seeded Granite Bears dropped an intense 5-4 dual team match to the N.C. School of Science and Math (Morganton) Dragons on May 14. The Bears won two-of-three doubles matches, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the No. 3 Dragons’ 4-2 advantage from singles.
The dual team semifinal, which was postponed multiple times due to rain, was an all-star match of competitors that competed in the NCHSAA Individual Tennis Championships the previous weekend. NCSSM’s Davin Hyche reached the semifinals of the 1A Singles Tournament. Mount Airy’s Kannon Strickland and Connor Sechrist teamed up to reach the state semifinals in the 1A Doubles Tournament, while NCSSM’s Julian Monzavifar/Joshua Banchik reached the doubles semifinals on the other half of the bracket.
Strickland topped Hyche 6-4 in the first set of their May 16 match. Hyche responded by sweeping Strickland in the second set, then outlasted the Granite Bear 10-8 to win the No. 1 singles bout.
Mount Airy fired back by winning the No. 2 singles match, with Sechrist taking down Viswajith Nambiar 6-1, 6-1 in No. 1 singles. Joe Hauser picked up Mount Airy’s other singles win by defeating Samuel Evans 7-5, 6-3 in No. 6 singles.
Monzavifar outlasted Mount Airy’s Chase Moore in No. 3 singles with back-to-back 7-5 set victories. Banchik added a win in No. 4 singles by topping Kieran Slate 6-2, 6-0.
Saisuprit Choutha had NCSSM’s final singles victory by defeating Beau Brown on court five.
Strickland/Sechrist kept Mount Airy in the fight by topping Hyche/Nambiar 8-4 in No. 1 doubles. Slate/Brown then went to a tiebreaker against Choutha/Evans in No. 3 singles before winning 9-7.
The all-state doubles duo of Monzavifar/Banchik clinched the match for the Dragons by topping Moore/Hauser 8-0 in No. 2 doubles.
NCSSM took part in another 5-4 match in the 1A West Regional Championship, this time falling to No. 1-seeded Elkin. Elkin went on to win its second-straight 1A State Championship.
Mount Airy finished the season 14-6 overall. The Granite Bears lost three of the 2023 team’s top four singles players, but still managed to reach the regional semifinals.
Mount Airy’s six losses this season, three of which were decided by a 5-4 margin, came against teams that finished with a combined record of 80 wins and just seven losses. The Bears were defeated by: eventual state champion Elkin (19-1) twice, 3A West Regional Runner-up Hickory (13-2), 2A West Regional semifinalist Salisbury (18-2), 1A West Regional Runner-up NCSSM (16-1), and a Bishop McGuinness (14-1) team that was also eliminated from the 1A State Playoffs by NCSSM.
The future is bright for a Mount Airy team that only graduates one senior.
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