Season far from over for Senators tennis team

The Carson boys tennis team has virtually no chance now to make the Northern Nevada zone playoffs.

But the season is far from over for the Senators and the future looks awfully bright.

Carson lost a hard fought match at South Tahoe 13-9 1/2 in a contest that was in effect for second place and the last spot into the Northern Nevada playoffs from the Sierra League. South Tahoe improved to 4-1 in league play while Carson fell to 3-2.

The Senators will now focus on advancing as many players as possible to the Northern Nevada singles and doubles championships.

With a team of predominantly freshmen and sophomores, Carson took a South Tahoe team in which its top seven players were seniors to the limit.

"When you take freshmen and sophomores and play that close to seniors, that's really encouraging for us," Carson Coach Jeff Evans said. "It is promising for the next couple of years."

Tuesday's match had several swing contests that affected the outcome. Carson, though, was only able to win three of nine doubles matches, which turned out to be the difference of the contest.

Carson was led by Martin Ellis, who swept his three singles to improve to 8-1 on the season. His only loss came by a 5-7 score.

Going into the last round, Carson needed to sweep the singles matches and win two of three doubles matches to pull out the match. Carson's hopes were dashed when Andy Araza lost to Tahoe's No. 1 player, 5-7.

Tahoe's top player had lost just once this season before Ellis beat him 7-5. Zach Caron and Jeff Knaus also lost a hard fought doubles match in the final round, 3-6.

Karl Schulz and Nick Weeks had a strong day in doubles, winning two of three matches. It was a tough day for Carson's Josh Brekken, who lost two of three matches, including a 4-6 loss to Tahoe's No. 1 player. Brekken is now 17-4 on the year.

In singles, Araza was able to win one match and Caron and Knaus won one match in doubles.