STATE EXTRA: Waiting game does not faze Hornets

BLACKSBURG
Hurry up and wait seemed to be the theme during Friday’s Group A team semifinals.

Rain ended any hope of getting in the regularly scheduled 9 a.m. matches at the Radford sports complex, forcing VHSL officials to make the call at 7:15 a.m. to move all of Friday’s tennis events to nearby Virginia Tech.

Virginia Tech has indoor facilities, allowing play to resume, as normal, but only six courts were available, forcing Wilson, who stayed overnight at Radford, to wait.

“We were ready to play, but waiting on the game was terrible,” said Wilson’s Christine Coffield. “We were just sitting around the mall trying to find ways to waste time.”

The Green Hornets spent the downtime away from the court, desperately trying to keep its mind off the upcoming match.

“It kind of sucked that we couldn’t play when we were supposed to play,” Wilson’s Kala Guy said. “We went to the mall because we had nowhere else to go, but once we got in there, we knew what we needed to do.”

First word was that Wilson would begin its match at noon, but that time was pushed back as matches went later than expected. The Green Hornets were notified that the match would begin at 1 p.m., but Wilson was sent away again to wait even longer.

Finally, a little after 2 p.m., the Virginia Tech and VHSL staffs began to prep the outdoor courts in Blacksburg allowing Wilson to begin play against Middlesex.

“I woke the girls up at 6:30 this morning, and we had a routine planned,” said Wilson coach Seth Lovell. “We had breakfast and got here early to get familiar with our surroundings and nothing went according to our plan. I told them before they came down to be prepared to be flexible.”

The Green Hornets didn’t miss a beat and, despite a late night and an early wake up call, didn’t show any signs of fatigue. But, before the players could even remember what side of the scoreboard they were on, the skies opened and rain fell again.

Play stopped and Wilson sought cover from the brief storm as officials watched the weather radar.

The showers quickly moved through and the officials were back on the court armed with commercial leaf blowers. Lovell, wanting desperately to get his team back on the court even got in on the action, arming himself with one.

“I’ve never used one of those before,” he said.

It didn’t take long for the court conditions to become more favorable and Wilson wasn’t put off by another break in the action.

Today the Green Hornets will try to end their school’s waiting game - it’s been almost 30 years since the Green Hornets have claimed a Group A girls team title, with their last coming in 1980 before their coach was even born.

Wilson will play Gate City today at 9 a.m. at Radford.