Jakobi Baumann, seen here during a practice, battled strongly Friday in a loss. (John Fisken photo)
Call them the Comeback Kids.
The Coupeville High School boys’ tennis squad pulled off a pair of stunning rallies Friday to keep the private school boys on their toes.
While the come-from-behind wins at second and third doubles weren’t quite enough to tip the match in the Wolves favor — host Overlake slipped away with a razor-thin 3-2 win in Redmond — it proved Coupeville won’t go down easy.
Now 0-2 on the young season, after playing a large 2A school and a private school powerhouse, both on the road, the Wolves return home Monday.
Coupeville hosts another 2A school, Sequim (1-1), with play tipping at 3:30.
Friday the Wolves found themselves in a hole early, but came roaring back from a set down in two of their doubles matches to put a positive glow on the afternoon.
Grey Rische and Jimmy Myers stayed on the court the longest, pulling out a hard-fought win in a third-set tiebreaker.
“Jimmy and Grey played a closely-contested match,” said CHS coach Ken Stange. “When they started their final tiebreaker, they were the last match on the court.
“Calm Grey and fiery Jimmy. It works fabulously!”
The biggest comeback though might have happened at second doubles, where juniors William Nelson and Joey Lippo dropped the first set 6-2.
After surging back to take the second set by the same score, they seemed at a dead-end, trailing 7-1 in a third-set tiebreaker played to 10.
Instead, the duo found their mojo in a snap, firing off nine straight points to shock the world with a 10-7 triumph.
In a match with just five varsity battles, being swept in the singles slots made life tough for the Wolves.
While he would have liked to have seen a different result on the score cards, Stange was pleased with the effort of his solo warriors.
“It was a good match,” he said. “Our singles guys were over-matched, but Nick (Etzell) played quite well.
“He employed his game plan the whole way through,” Stange added. “He’s getting better every day.”
Complete results:
Varsity:
1st singles — Nick Etzell lost to Reyhan Virani 6-2, 6-3
2nd singles — Nile Lockwood lost to Charlie Hill 6-0, 6-0
1st doubles — Joseph Wedekind/John McClarin lost to Quinn Clelland/Nachiket Karmarkar 6-3, 6-4
2nd doubles — Joey Lippo/William Nelson beat Zander Gillett/Kellen Foster 2-6, 6-2, 10-7
3rd doubles — Grey Rische/Jimmy Myers beat Gaurav Nene/Lucas Gavrila 3-6, 6-4, 10-6
JV:
4th doubles — Aiden Crimmins/Nick Blalock lost to Chris Chen/Matt Heimbigner 6-3
5th doubles — Mason Grove/Jakobi Baumann lost to John Sinwell/Zach Natha 6-3
6th doubles — Koby Schreiber/Jaschon Baumann lost to Evan Lauer/Josup Cho 6-1
7th doubles — Tiger Johnson/Elliot Johnson lost to Weston Kennedy/Sam Hirsch 6-4
Coupeville Sports 