Warriors beat Golden Falcons on tennis court

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on April 19, 2012 1:48 PM

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Cole Newsome wasn't about to let an undefeated season or Eastern Wayne's chance to claim the Eastern Carolina 3-A Conference men's tennis championship outright slip away Wednesday afternoon.

The senior listened to his heart.

Newsome rallied from two multiple-point deficits in tie-breaking situations, and helped the Warriors turn back archrival Charles B. Aycock, 6-3, in the ECC regular-season finale for both teams. The Warriors (16-0 overall, 12-0 ECC) secured their first league crown since 2007 and third overall in program history.

"Unbelievable heart (by Newsome)," EW head coach Craig Hassell said with misty eyes. "He's done this all year with his senior leadership. The kid's got unbelievable heart and just refuses to lose. It's not pretty, but he gets it done."

Newsome, who improved to 16-0, rallied from two points down to force a third-set tiebreaker against Aycock's Sam Chastain at No. 6 singles. Chastain grabbed the upper hand in the tiebreak, but Newsome -- this time -- erased a five-point deficit to give the Warriors a critical 4-2 advantage heading into doubles play.

The come-from-behind victory set up Eastern Wayne's No. 1 tandem of Chaz Fitzpatrick-Russell Turner, who clinched the overall outcome with an 8-0 shutout of the Golden Falcons' Will Hoff-Michael Kearney.

"We really needed to split singles to have a legitimate chance in the match," CBA head coach Luke Vail said. "It's hard to sweep doubles against a good team. Eastern Wayne is a team that's aggressive with big servers, good volleys, very good overheads.

"To their credit, they were able to pull out the tie-breaker at number six singles, which was, as they say, the turning point of the match."

Eastern Wayne swept Aycock (15-4, 10-2) in regular-season play for the first time since 2007. Fitzpatrick, Turner and Steven Taylor each prevailed on the singles courts. Taylor-Newsome triumphed at No. 3 doubles.

Austin Walker and Chas Hooks each needed third-set tie-breakers to pick up singles points for Aycock. Addison Vail-Walker claimed the Golden Falcons' lone point in doubles play.