Tupelo advances past Oxford to reach semifinals

TUPELO – Oxford made the Golden Wave work for it, but Tupelo still came out on top.

Tupelo topped the Chargers 6-1 on Tuesday at Rob Leake City Park to advance to the semifinals of the Class 7A tennis tournament. The semifinals and finals will be played on Monday at the John Leslie Tennis Center in Oxford.

“That’s been our whole goal this year is to make it back to the semifinals and then ultimately the finals,” Tupelo head coach Payton Pearce said. “Of course, with them playing it on the same day, you have to be ready for a full day of tennis. Of course, our ultimate goal is to win the whole thing, and we don’t want to shy away from that.”

The final score favored Tupelo, but that doesn’t show how competitive several matches were. Three required a third set, and another needed a tiebreaker in the second set.

Tupelo’s first boys doubles team of Land Magruder and Luke Williamson found itself in one of those close matches. They took the first set, dropped the second and made a furious rally in the tiebreaker to pull out the 6-3, 3-6, 1-0 (9) win.

“Relief. Being down in that tiebreak 6-9 gets me worried, but somehow made it through,” Magruder said.

Tupelo is still motivated by losing to Madison Central in the finals last year, and the Golden Wave’s hopes of avenging that loss are still alive.

“It feels like you sort of beat a dead horse talking about it over and over again, but our team really felt like we could have won that in the finals last year, and then we don’t,” Pearce said. “Now, the whole year is kind of building up to get back to that point. So, I think when you have that on the horizon, it’s easy to stay motivated and know what’s in front of you.”