The Milligan College men’s and women’s tennis teams played Christian Brothers University in an exhibition match at a neutral site Friday, Feb. 2. The match was played at Tennessee Wesleyan University. The Buffs lost on both sides.
The women’s team lost their matches 5-4 with the men behind them scoring 7-2.
Going into Friday’s match the tennis Buffs were looking for a win, following two tough conference matches from last weekend. With these matches being counted as exhibition matches, they do not affect the Buffs’ record. But that didn’t matter to sophomore Mason Grear.
Grear was seen practicing Thursday before the match, making sure to put in some extra reps to prepare.
“It’s important to put in the extra time,” Grear said. “(Christian Brothers) are a bigger school than us, so we have to play at our highest level.”
Grear set out with that mentality and had the closest matches among the guys’ team, losing 6-4, 6-4.
“I met my personal goals, which were to work for every point and motivate my teammates,” Grear said. “I had a long match with a lot of long points but ultimately fell short at the end.”
Senior Daniel Peacock was also a big competitor for the men’s team, winning in both his doubles and singles matches.
“We wanted to improve and get some experience in a match setting,” Peacock said. “In that regard, we did meet our goals.”
For the women’s side it was a rematch between Milligan’s number two player, senior Abby Allen, and CBU’s senior Lauran Woog.
“It was a really close match last time,” Allen said. “I will be looking to keep it close or win.”
Unfortunately for Allen, she lost the sets 6-1 and 6-0.
“Moving forward, we are looking to keep improving,” Peacock said. “We have a very talented team and are getting stronger after each match.”