As the Reidsville tennis team traveled from the outskirts of Greensboro to Washington High School Tuesday evening, the Pam Pack tennis team sat anxiously waiting for its opponent on a gloomy senior night, as inclement weather slowly encroached from the west.

Head coach Miranda Whitley and team parents, glued to their smartphones, watched on their weather radars as the green, orange and red blobs crept closer and closer to the dry tennis courts. Rain soaked Raleigh, tornado warnings emerged in Wilson and severe thunderstorms surrounded Greenville, but like a multi-million dollar domed stadium, the weather remained passive and calm over Washington. With three other sporting events canceled ahead of time that evening – soccer, softball and baseball – athletic director Allison Jones, who was monitoring the impending severe weather intently, figured it was only a matter of time until that single bolt of lightning forced the tennis team and fans to take shelter.

That moment never came, the Rams arrived at around 5 p.m. and the No. 6 tennis team in the state went on to win its first round match in the dual team playoffs, 5-1.

The Pack faced an interesting adversary in the first round. Reidsville, a team out of the Mid-State Conference, exhibited six players with virtually identical technical ability and season records. As a result, Washington’s No.1, junior Connor Wilkins, breezed by, but the rest of the team had to exert maximum effort to come out on top.

Wilkins, the top singles player in the Coastal Plains Conference, matched up against Reidsville’s No. 1 option, Kyle Crisco, and demonstrated methodical tennis throughout the contest. Wilkins kept Crisco on the move with cross-court, inside out forehands and well-timed slices. Crisco, 8-3 in singles this season, was overcome by Wilkins raw athleticism and court vision. Washington’s habitual top performer won easily, 6-0, 6-1, improving his overall record to a perfect 19-0.

Sophomore Holt McKeithan, Whitley’s No. 2 option, had arguably the toughest match up of the evening against the Rams’ Kris Drizake. Drizake, boasting a team-best 9-2 singles record, was a carbon copy of McKeithan in terms of style and court coverage. For most of the match, both players went back-and-forth, forehand-to-backhand, until someone slipped up. A few late-set miscues caused McKeithan to drop the first set, 7-5, putting him in a hole early. The second set proved to be a mirror image of the first, as Drizake finished off McKeithan, 7-5.

The Pam Pack’s lone senior, Luke Ainsworth, had what Whitley called “the match of his life” against Reidsville’s Reid Soloman, who was 8-3 entering the match.

“I’m so proud of him,” Whitley said. “He picked the perfect day to play as well as he did.”

Ainsworth, customarily known for stretching out matches and testing challengers’ stamina, was one of the first off the court, defeating Soloman, 6-3, 6-1.

Sophomore Eric Crozier faced one of the most unique competitors of the day in Will Hardy. Hardy employed an unusual backcourt lob tactic that had Crozier playing with his back against the fence for most of the match. Making sure he put kept the ball in play, Crozier was able to logically work his way up to the net, where he was forced to hit the lob shots on the fly for easy aces. Crozier defeated Hardy, 6-1, 6-4.

Zack Pagnani had one of the best comebacks of the evening in his match versus Reidsville’s Grayson Cundiff. Displaying unusually lackadaisical body language, Pagnani either seemed irritated with his performance out of the gate, or his opponent’s calls on the court. He dropped the first set, 6-1. However, the scrappy freshman did a complete 180 in the second set after a short pep talk from coach Whitley. Pagnani began to hit the ball cleanly and keep pace with his counterpart. He won the second set, 6-4, and eventually the third-set tiebreaker, 11-9.

Freshman Ben McKeithan, using his usual quick court coverage and accuracy, knocked off Eduardo Villegas, 6-3, 6-1.

“I think we can make a run, especially after missing a week of practice after spring break,” Whitley said. “We weren’t able to practice yesterday because of, yet again, because of the weather.”

Just minutes after Whitley spoke of the chronic bad weather, the clouds rumbled, the sky lit up with lightning and rain soon began to soak the courts, washing away the memorable, multi-colored word “SENIOR” written in chalk across Ainsworth’s court. The lone senior.

As for the next round, the Pam Pack will face Greene Central on Tuesday, May 6 in the second leg of the Class 2-A dual team playoffs.