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PrintIt’s something you rarely hear Rock Bridge boys tennis coach Ben Loeb say after a home match.
“Wow, that’s a tough one to take,” said Loeb at the end of the Bruins’ match Wednesday at Bethel Park.
Before Wednesday, the Bruins had never lost a meet at home since they began playing at the Bethel Park courts in the spring of 2001. Their 61-game winning streak at home came to an end in a 5-4 loss to Jefferson City.
“We’ve had some classic dual meet wins over the years,” Loeb said. “What’s made that streak so impressive is that we’ve played some very good teams here.”
The Bruins looked as though they might seal the victory after going 4-2 in singles. All they needed to do was win one of three doubles matches, which they failed to do.
Their best chance was at No. 1 doubles where the Bruins’ Stefan Nosic and Jay Kinderknecht played the Jays’ Chris Claypool and Ryan Claypool.
After entering a tiebreaker, the Bruins led 8-3, but ended up losing 11-9.
“I felt confident that we would still find a way to win,” Loeb said. “I knew that each of the doubles matches was going to be very competitive.
I’m disapponted we didn’t win one of them, but Jefferson City deserves a lot of credit for the way they played in doubles. Overall, they played a little bit better dual meet than we did.”
The bright side for the Bruins were come-from-behind victories from Daniel Ni at No. 4 singles and Authur Jago at No. 5 singles.
The pair, juniors and first-time varsity players, lost their first set, but battled back to win. Most impressively, Jago, who was losing to Andrew Scheperle 4-1 in the first set, didn’t let him get another point in his 6-4, 6-0 victory.
Jago said he felt the momentum and told himself he wasn’t going to lose. He recalled Loeb telling the team it’s as much mental as it is physical.
“I guess I just kind of woke up and started playing better,” Jago said.
Despite the Bruins’ loss, Loeb said he was pleased with Jago’s performance.
“Authur was in a bit of trouble and elevated to a higher level and came on strong and played a great match,” Loeb said.
The Bruins will next face the Hickman Kewpies at 4 p.m. today.
“We’re real down after tonight’s match,” Loeb said. “I think we’ll brounce back tomorrow.”
Show Me the Errors 
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