Hendersonville – Hendersonville Lady Bearcats are mega champions in tennis after winning their fourth state dual team title in a row with Eliza Perry as a pivotal player.
“It feels pretty crazy,” number one seed Eliza Perry said Monday, reflecting on the state title. “We put a lot of hard work in. How much you put in is how much you get out of it.”
The junior and her young teammates aim for a “five-peat” in 2023. The top five HHS seeds are all eligible to return.
The Lady Bearcats were 16-1 overall and 10-0 in winning the Mountain Foothills Conference crown. They defeated Raleigh Charter 5-4 in a close state finals match. The teams split the six singles matches. Winners for Hendersonville were the top two seeds, Perry and Ramsey Ross, and fourth seed Reese Redden. The top two doubles teams won, to clinch the title.
Perry was the state tourney MVP. She finished 14-0. She is the sole senior among the top six singles players. Ross was 13-1. Third seed Raleigh Prichard was 11-2. Anna Macdowell is the fifth seed. Katherine Graham went 12-2 in the sixth slot. Graham is the sole senior among the top six players.
Ross won the sportsmanship award for the entire 2022 season.
Mike Jones, an HHS science teacher, is the team’s first-year head coach. Jones is assisted by Lane Perry, who is Eliza’s mother.
The players train at Hendersonville Country Club. Perry said, “Ramsey and I are out there every day playing.”
Perry-Ross
Perry-Ross went 12-0 as the No. 1 Lady Bearcat doubles team. They won their second consecutive state doubles title in non-team play. Their winning scores at the state tourney were 6-0, 6-0; 6-0, 6-1; 6-1, 6-1; then 6-2, 6-4 to win the title. This was ahead of the team tournament.
Perry said since freshman days, “I’m definitely a more aggressive player. I am definitely more of a serve and volleyer” than an all-court player. Perry is 5-foot-7 and 1/2 inches tall.
Perry said of Ross, “We’ve played tennis since elementary school.” Ross noted Perry has played since a young age. “Eliza has taught me a lot about the game. She directs me on the court” during points. “Eliza is more of an offensive player. I’m more of a defensive player. I help control points.”
Ross tends to stay back to guard against deep shots, when she is serving. Perry said that when she serves, she picks spots to charge the net. She takes more chances if they have points to spare. She appreciates how reliable Ross is when playing up front. “Ramsey is very good at getting the short balls at the net.” Perry said when they are both at the net on the attack, if lobbed then she often is the one to race back for the ball.
Prichard-Redden went 12-1 as the squad’s second doubles tandem. The third unit of Macdowell-Graham was 9-2.
Sixth-seeded HHS edged West Region top seed Salisbury 5-4 to win the dual regional crown, a season after beating Salisbury in the state semifinals. HHS beat Shelby in the regional final in 2021. The four-year state title run began in 2019 when HHS edged N.C. School of Science and Math 5-4, by sweeping all three doubles matches after winning merely two of six singles matches.
Perry-Perry
Eliza Perry continues the Perry sisters’ tennis dynasty. She was a freshman when she and her elder sister, McCollough Perry, won the 2020–21 state doubles title and when they led HHS to the 2020–21 team title in June of 2021. McCollough graduated in that month. She led HHS to the first of its four consecutive team titles in 2019. She was a multiple-state runner-up in singles. She now stars in tennis for UNC-Greensboro. Eliza Perry has since won two more state doubles titles with Ross.
Perry-Perry defeated the HHS duo of Ava Heffner and Lindsay Bull to win the 2020–21 regional title. McCollough Perry’s prior doubles partner, ironically, was Bull, a 2022 graduate. When the Perry sisters joined forces, Bull partnered with Heffner.
Some observers of the team this fall said that Eliza Perry meshed with Ross in doubles even better than she did with her sister. Eliza said with a chuckle that “as sisters, we might get mad at each other when one of us misses a point.” She said there is more harmony with Ross.
Five state titles in a row is a sensible goal for this young squad. There are merely two seniors. They are Graham and Zoe Corbin. Current juniors are Perry, Ross, and Katherine Clemmer. The five sophomores are Prichard, Redden, Kruesi Graham, Addison Ducker, and Alexa Reyes. The freshmen are Macdowell and Avery Dhein.