Concord-Carlisle High School boys tennis coach Alex Spence said his team wasn’t focused on Thursday afternoon, which subsequently cost it a win. The Patriots lost 4-1 to St. John’s Prep of Danvers, a team that has just one loss on the season.
“It could be because we’ve had so many matches all in a row,” Spence said. “It could be a number of things. It’s spring semester, it’s a pretty tough time of year. I think we need to get back on the practice court and play more matches together.”
Spence added that the boys weren’t playing the kind of tennis they have been practicing.
Find out what's happening in Concordfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
“(St. John’s) is a very good team … and they’re really well coached too. Mark Metropolis, their coach, has got their doubles teams playing really good technical doubles,” Spence said.
St. John’s No. 1 doubles team, comprised of John Corvi and Bradley Noyes, beat Concord-Carlisle’s Tom Kleyn and Adam Shoemaker 6-3, 6-4. At No. 2 doubles St. John’s Mike Beluch and Mark Corvi beat Concord-Carlisle’s Matt Jarko and Josh Zirkel 6-0, 6-3.
Find out what's happening in Concordfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
“They’ve clearly played a lot of matches and I think that experience is paying off,” Spence said. “(St. John’s is) playing very confident right now."
Concord-Carlisle was also defeated in No. 2 and No. 3 singles.
Erik Dinardo lost to St. John’s Spencer Canny 6-1, 6-0, and at No. 3 singles, Alex Schmidt was beaten by St. John’s Chris Toner 6-2, 6-1.
“I think we saw a very good team out there and we played a little tentatively in the beginning,” Spence said, “and later on in the sets I think we started to compete, but at that point I think Prep had already built momentum to close out matches.”
Concord-Carlisle’s only win of the match came from No. 1 singles player and two-time defending state champion, Alex Steinroeder. The senior shut out St. John’s Cameron Trosin 6-0, 6-0.
The Patriots still have two more matches until their regular season is finished.
They face Bedford High School on Friday and Needham High School on Monday.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Spence said about sustaining a fresh start for Friday’s meet. “I think (we) went away thinking that we can compete a little harder and maybe go after our opponent rather than trying to see what our opponent’s going to do.
“So hopefully we can go out and regroup and just execute (on Friday).”
And as for the postseason, Spence said he’s not thinking about that just yet.
“We have no idea what the schedule is for that. We’re just going to do the best we can do in the next two matches,” he said.
Concord-Carlisle travels to Bedford High School on Friday for a makeup meet that was originally scheduled for May 18. The meet starts at 3:45 p.m.
