By ALEC ETHEREDGE | Sports Editor

NORTH SHELBY – Both the Briarwood boys’ and girls’ tennis teams have started the 2017 season on a tear and continued that success into a matchup with an also impressive Spain Park team on Tuesday, April 4 as both the Lions’ teams picked up a win over the Jaguars.

The girls’ side of the match featured a 6-0 Briarwood team playing host to a 10-1 Spain Park squad. After starting the match with wins in two of three doubles matches, the Lions had built a lead causing Spain Park to have to play catch up the rest of the way.

Callie Ware and Katelyn Bussey took doubles on court two, while Grayson Emerson and Keeton Cross picked up a doubles win on court three.

Moving on to the singles matches, Spain Park was able to grab wins on court one, two and four to climb back into the match, but thanks to Emerson and Cross winning their second match of the day and Kara Coleman winning her first of the day, Briarwood was able to hang on for a closely contested 5-4 win to keep their undefeated record in tact moving to 7-0 this year.

In similar fashion to the girls, the Lions’ boys team started their matchup by winning all three doubles courts, which really put the pressure on the Jags as they would have to win five of the six singles matches if they wanted to win.

The doubles dominance was thanks to Luke and John Wolfe winning on court one, Christian Ragsdale and Bennett Davis winning on court two, and Tyler Guerra and Alex Felts winning on court three.

With Spain Park behind the eight ball, all Briarwood had to do was pick up two singles wins, which they got with ease as Ragsdale, Felts and Davis all picked up their second win of the day to give the Lions a rather easy 6-3 win.

With the win, the boys moved to 7-1 on the season with their only loss coming in a hard fought 5-4 shootout with the Vestavia Hills Rebels. Both teams have proven they are strong contenders to bring home a state championship this season as the state tournament sits less than three weeks away.

The Lions will travel to Tuscaloosa next week to take on Hillcrest on Tuesday, March 11 before hosting Walker County the following day.