The season is starting to wind down for the Vashon High School boys’ tennis team and it is beginning to prepare for post-season play.

October started out a bit rough for the team, as some winnable matches were canceled for various reasons, and an early-season match against Charles Wright ended in a tie, requiring a makeup. The team visited Charles Wright on Thursday, Oct. 5, for its final match up of the season and a makeup of the prior match. Unfortunately for the Pirates, they lost both the tiebreaker to decide the first match and the second match. Looking ahead, the next week looked daunting as well, with opponent Fife at 14-0 and Bush and Lincoln at 11-1 also on the schedule.

The Pirates showed a lot of resiliency and growth from last season by bouncing back against Fife 4-1 on Monday, Oct. 9. In doing so, the Pirates ended a 14-match win streak for Fife and reversed a tough loss to them last season. At number one singles, Pirate Towner Anderson took a well earned 5-7, 6-4, 10-8 win. Hank Rogers followed that up with a clean 6-1, 6-1 victory at number two singles.

The Pirates dropped the number one doubles match up, but the team of Amadeo Gallina and Mason Rice bounced back to take the number two doubles match 7-5, 7-6.

In number three doubles, the pair of Cameron Bedard and Zach Van Dusen rallied from a rough start to take an important and well-deserved 0-6, 6-3, 10-8 win.

Next, the Pirates traveled to Bush on Tuesday, Oct. 10. This was a bit of a strange match played indoors in Bellevue due to rain. Bush has a small team, so only eight players traveled to this match. The Pirates had trouble with Bush last season, but that was not the case this time. Rogers was pushed at number one singles, but won in a tiebreaker. Anderson, at number two singles; the pair of Wyatt Keppler and JJ Bogaard at number one doubles; the pair of Rice and Finley Oswald at number two doubles and the pair of Bedard and Jon Maciejewski at number three doubles all recorded fairly straightforward wins as Vashon swept Bush 5-0.

Last Friday, the Pirates faced a strong Lincoln team. Lincoln is a 3A school which usually has a large and successful program. This year, they came into the match first in their league and undefeated. Because Vashon was playing some intersquad matches and Lincoln arrived early, the Pirates ended up playing some different lineups and in a different order. The change seemed to work as Anderson played a very strong match to take number one singles 6-0, 6-0. Rogers and Gallina played at number three doubles due to nagging injuries and delivered a 6-0, 6-2 win. At number two singles, Bedard played his first singles match of the year and put in a great effort, but could not stop a crafty Lincoln player. Lincoln typically has very strong doubles teams and they took number one doubles as well.

The match of the day was at number two doubles where the pair of Rice and Oswald played some great points, but were narrowly edged by a tough Lincoln duo 6-7, 5-7 in a long, tense and exciting match.

Despite the 3-2 loss, the Pirates took a lot away from this match, including the knowledge that they could compete with some of the stronger teams.

The Pirate junior varsity teams fared quite well against the Lincoln players and were able to get in quite a few matches.

This week, the Pirates ended their regular season with a home match against Cascade Christian after press time Monday. They will travel to Sprinker Recreation Center tomorrow, Thursday, for the Nisqually League tournament. Players that qualify from league will then move on to the district tournament on Oct. 25 — again at Sprinker.

— Pat Mulvihill is head coach of the VHS varsity tennis team.