By the time Bethlehem Catholic’s singles tennis matches against Northampton were finished and two were lost, Coach Dan Arkans’s mind was on Plan B: if the Golden Hawks could win with their undefeated third doubles team, the Hawks could win their match against the Konkrete Kids on March 25 at Becahi.

“Tyler (Lennert) and Jorge (Herrera) haven’t lost, so I was counting on them to pull through, and that was their closest one,” Arkans said, “but you play every match down to the wire like that, you’re gonna lose some, and you’re gonna win some.”

Lennert and Herrera lost to Chase Roland and Max Kochan, 5-7, 4-6.

The Hawks were also counting on a victory at first singles, but a close first set between Becahi’s John Vallance and Dane Missmer was a loss for the Hawks, 5-7, 2-6.

“[John] missed a couple matches, but I thought he’d pull through. That was one I thought we would get. John couldn’t keep his head in it, and then the more it went on, the more he was getting frustrated,” said Coach Arkans.

The match at second doubles, however, was a 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 win for Becahi’s Derrick Hartman and Kendryk Silva over Brett Bastian and Connor Retlick.

“Second doubles really surprised me, pairing freshmen, playing together for the first time. That was surprising they were able to pull through like that after losing the first set,” said Arkans. “Kendryk’s much better in the back, and Derrick’s much better at the net, so we were trying to focus on getting the best positioning, and I think they got confidence the more they settled in to the match.”

Hartman noted that Bastian and Retlick were making few mistakes, so the Becahi pair had to play aggressive and force Northampton to make errors.

“We were kind of mad at ourselves, so you have to forget about that (first) set,” added Silva. “We realized they weren’t gonna hit it down the alley, so we could cheat toward the center, and that helped a lot. They had us thinking more about how we should play our points.”

Also winning for the Hawks was Xavier Shive-Sanchez at second singles over Nick Reichel, 6-3, 6-2.

“I started off kind of slow, but once I got into it, I was pretty much fine,” said Shive-Sanchez. “He was pretty good at getting the ball back. I wasn’t really a fan of how much spin he put on the ball. I usually like to keep it down and close to the net, but a couple I had to really pop them up because of the way he was hitting them back to me. I thought that was the best shot to hit in the position I was in. Overall, I’m pretty happy with my performance today.”

Shive-Sanchez and Vallance then paired up to defeat Missmer and Reichel at first doubles, 8-3, but it wasn’t enough for the Hawks to beat the Kids in the team score after Becahi’s Ralston Rowlands and Nico Massa lost to Michael DiSante and Nick DiSante at fourth doubles, 6-2, 6-1.

With a 4-3 team victory for Northampton, the Konkrete Kids improved their record to 5-3 while the Hawks’ record went to 4-3.