Pirates narrowly beat Gray’s Creek on the court

LUMBERTON — From start to finish, Wednesday’s girls tennis match between Lumberton and Gray’s Creek could not have been closer.

It was fitting, then, that the outcome came down to the final match.

The Pirates’ Shania Hunt and Josie Lawson battled Gray’s Creek’s Saniyah Leach and Chloe Hall, winning the last two points to win the match 9-7 and give Lumberton a 5-4 win in the overall contest.

“You can’t let your team down,” Hunt said. “Even if you’re at the bottom, you can always make it back to the top.”

Lumberton (4-1, 3-1 United-8 Conference) had the opportunity to win the match in doubles after Hunt pulled out a third-set tiebreak to win the last singles match standing. After Hunt won the first set 6-1 over Gray’s Creek’s Meadow Ellis, and Ellis won the second set 6-3, Hunt won six straight points to claim the tiebreak 10-8 after trailing 8-4.

“That gave us a chance in doubles, and of course they pulled it out in doubles,” Lumberton coach Mackie Register said. “They’ve been struggling a little bit at the (No.) 1 in doubles, but they showed up tonight when they needed to.”

“The thing is, I was really nervous in the beginning, but when you’re in the match, people are like, if you’re down just give up,” Hunt said. “I can’t give up. You just can’t; it’s my senior year, I want to go hard, finish strong, so I did and I came out on top.”

Gray’s Creek (2-2, 2-1 United-8) led the match 4-2 after singles, but Lumberton won all three doubles matches.

Charley Whitley and Mackenzie Register improved to 4-1 this season for the Pirates with an 8-1 win over Carly Canady and August Kebort.

“Charley and Mackenzie, they’re playing well together and they’re just going to get better and better,” Mackie Register said. “Their styles fit each other, and they feed off each other, and they could easily be our No. 1 doubles team. Our team is really balanced, one through six, and we can mix and match however. But I’m just really proud of the way we played today. We never gave up, and we could’ve easily laid down and given them one of those matches, but we didn’t, we kept fighting.”

Caroline Hall and Olivia McLamb also won their doubles match for the Pirates, an 8-1 victory over Addien DeVault and Madalyn Eddy.

Four of the six singles matches went to a tiebreak set, with Gray’s Creek winning three of the four, giving the Bears their 4-2 lead after the session. Hunt’s win was the lone tiebreak win for Lumberton; Whitley also won convincingly, topping Leach 6-0, 6-1.

The Bears’ Chloe Hall beat Mackenzie Register 5-7, 6-4 (10-8); Canady defeated Caroline Hall 6-1, 1-6 (10-3); and Annie Ratliff beat Andrea Brown 7-5, 2-6 (10-6). Gray’s Creek’s non-tiebreak win came from Becca Slade, who earned a 7-5, 6-2 win over Lawson.

“I was proud of our girls in singles; four of the six matches, we went to the third set, and we lost three of those four,” Mackie Register said. “We could’ve made it a little easier if we won one of those. But also I think our strength is our doubles teams. If we’re in some close matches, we’re going to pull it out in the doubles, and that kind of showed tonight.”

While it comes early in the seaosn, Wednesday’s match was key in the United-8 Conference race, with Lumberton and Gray’s Creek potentially set to be the top two 4A schools in the conference.

“I’m pretty sure they thought they could get us. They thought this is their season,” Lawson said.

“It’s our season,” Hunt added, standing next to her doubles partner. “We’ve got it.”