THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Permian High School Athletics

The Permian tennis team came through with a 12-7 win over the Andrews Mustangs in a nondistrict matchup Tuesday afternoon at the Pat Wikse Tennis Facility. Panthers head coach Edgar Lazcano was proud of his team’s performance after a sluggish start. “Overall, we started a little bit slow,” Lazcano said. “Our boys started out fast and we got those three doubles victories. But our girls started out a little slow. But they started picking it up.” The Panther boys swept the Mustangs in the singles and doubles. In the mixed doubles, Permian’s Genel Verasco and Randy Garcia came through against Andrews (consisting of Luis Ramos and Kaiti Jeppesen). The Panthers won the first match 6-4 before an illness to Ramos forced him and his partner to retire. “We had a little bit of luck in the mix because their number one boy had to retire to illness,” Lazcano said. “It was a little bit of luck for us. The boys came out and really played well in the singles. The girls fought well in the singles and we have some things to work on.” “I think it went well,” Garcia said. “I think my serves could have had a bit more of a consistency. I was trying to put more slice on my first serves, but in the first set, once we started playing more aggressive, then we started to get more points.” Garcia and Velasco were able to overcome a slow start to their match. “We’re usually slow starters, but the first set, we started attacking very well,” Garcia said. “Andrews was pretty good. They were much better than what we’ve seen in the past.” Velasco was able to step up the intensity in the mixed doubles. “I was playing a little bit scared,” Velasco said. “So I started to up my intensity a little bit and we started to win.” In the boys doubles, the Panthers’ Logan Harrington and Nolan McKibben were able to knock off the Mustangs’ Aaron Figueroa and Chris Curry, 6-1 and 6-2. “I think we just had to get our serves in and we were able to capitalize on points.” Harrington said. “The main thing for us was just getting to the net. Once we got to the net, we could win the point. Every time we stayed back, we lost the point.” “We weren’t getting our returns deep enough so once we started doing that, everything fell into place for us,” McKibben said. “Our first serve percentage went up a lot from our last match that we played.” Andrews swept the girls doubles category. “One of the biggest takeaways is that we’re not getting as many points as we have in the last couple of weeks,” Lazcano said. “The boys are cleaning up their game and getting conventional doubles. The girls are getting into rallies pretty quick.” The Panthers will begin district play Saturday. “If these boys and girls keep playing like they have and just push a little bit harder, then we’ll be good,” Lazcano said.

THE OFFICIAL SITE OF
Permian High School Athletics

PERMIAN DEFEATS ANDREWS

MICHAEL BAUER

Odessa American | 9/4/2018

PHOTO CREDIT: Odessa American