By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Connor Pherson looked around and he knew what was happening as the North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association’s Division III dual team championship match for boys’ tennis was winding down.
As the No. 3 singles player for Burlington Christian Academy, the Royals’ fate rested with Pherson. He was on the court opposite John Wahl of Wayne Country Day School.
Pherson was in big trouble, trailing the third-set tiebreaker by 9-4. The first to reach 10 (with a two-point margin) would win.
“His team is standing up and they’re about ready to storm the court,” Pherson remembered, referring to Wahl’s teammates.
It would take Pherson winning five consecutive points to keep the match alive – and he had scored only four points to that juncture in the tiebreaking set.
Even BCA coach William Clark had accepted a potential outcome. He saw Wayne Country Day School players eager to celebrate, and he figured Pherson had given a good effort. He spoke briefly to BCA players watching from the sideline.
COACH PREPARES TEAM FOR THE WORST . . then rejoices with team in comeback
“Once he got down 9-4, I went and talked to the other kids. I told them they had to prepare to pick him up and cheer him up because there was no way. . . You guys need to pick him up because he’s going to be really down.
“When it hits 9-4, he doesn’t have a chance. . . What he did does not happen. You do not come back from that. It went from just complete nerves to utter excitement for the kids.”
– BCA tennis coach William Clark
“Once he got down 9-4, I went and talked to the other kids,” Clark said. “I told them they had to prepare to pick him up and cheer him up because there was no way. . . You guys need to pick him up because he’s going to be really down.”
Clark, too unnerved to watch, retreated to a back court. There, he said he could only see Pherson’s teammates gathered courtside.
“I was nervous that the whole team was counting on me. . .
“I can’t let this kid beat us two years in a row.”
– BCA tennis player Connor Pherson
“I was just watching my team’s response,” Clark said. “I was past the point of nervous.”
Then one point at a time Pherson mounted the improbable comeback at North Carolina Wesleyan in Rocky Mount.
Pherson, a sophomore, had won the first set 6-2 before Wahl claimed a 7-5 victory in the second set. There was a brief break prior to the tiebreaker.
“The whole season came down to 10 points there,” Pherson said. “I was nervous that the whole team was counting on me.”
In retrospect, Pherson also understood this was an ideal opportunity. The team score was knotted at 4-4, with the state championship hanging in the balance.
“That’s what everybody dreams of being in that spot – 4-4 and for all the marbles,” Pherson said.
A year ago, Wahl turned in a clinching point when Wayne Country Day School eliminated the Royals in the semifinals.
“I can’t let this kid beat us two years in a row,” Pherson said of his thoughts.
Yet the situation as it unfolded on that mid-May day wasn’t ideal. All Wahl needed was one more point, and he held all the momentum.
“If I mess up one shot there, we don’t have it,” Pherson said of the championship. “I was thinking that I need to focus and not make a mistake.”
His comeback began without much hype, but from the nearby court Clark said he could sense a bit of growing hope as Pherson whittled away at the deficit.
BCA’s Clayton Knavel also wasn’t watching after winning his No. 6 singles match. Dealing with heat-related ailments, he had retreated to a nearby restroom that was air conditioned, while his father, Jason Knavel, poked his head out to provide score updates from the decisive match. Those reports from the elder Knavel went from “welp, great season anyway” to “what in the world?”
Pherson said he took the mindset of “just get one more ball back (across the net).”
Then it was 9-7 and Pherson was serving. Soon, BCA players were standing and ready to react.
By the time Pherson held a 10-9 lead, it was match point for him. Neither player wanted to mess up and fatigue might have been a factor.
Clark said videotape of what became the match point reflected it took five minutes for that point to be determined.
“We were both so nervous and not wanting to make a mistake,” Pherson said.
On a key high lob, Pherson said he remembered it seeming like slow-motion with the ball in the air and all becoming quiet. Then, he had won with an 11-9 decision in the tiebreaker.
“I got surrounded by all the other guys,” Pherson said.
The Royals prevailed 5-4, resulting in BCA’s first team state title in boys’ tennis.
“What I really remember is it’s more scary to think about it afterward,” Pherson said of the predicament. “It didn’t really register with me in the moment. . . It’s a huge mountain to climb to win five or six (points) in a row.”
It turns out, he won seven consecutive points.
For Clark, that’s why hope had faded.
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“When it hits 9-4, he doesn’t have a chance,” Clark said. “. . . What he did does not happen. You do not come back from that. It went from just complete nerves to utter excitement for the kids.”
It was a grueling day physically and mentally for the Royals, and for Pherson in particular.
“I drank like four or five bottles of water that day and a couple of Gatorades,” he recalled.
The result gave Pherson a 17-2 singles record to go with a 14-5 mark in doubles. Earlier, Nathan Clark (No. 1 singles), Nathan Garrigan (No. 5 singles), Knavel, and Garrigan/Luke Williams (No. 3 doubles) collected BCA’s other team points. Clark’s triumph in a third-set tiebreaker had tied the team score at 4-4.
BCA ended with a 17-3 record.
Pherson, also a cross country runner, has been playing tennis at BCA since seventh grade. He’s working part-time this summer at Burlington Tennis Center.Â
