Leading up to its early season match on Friday, April 20, Shawna Morley needed only three words to get her West’s boys tennis team fired up: Concord vs. West.

A simple mention of the longstanding rivalry and Morley’s motivational job was complete.

“It’s an epic matchup that transcends everything else,” said Morley before the match. “The inspirational speeches don’t come from me, but from the great history these teams have. The Tide always had a strong program, and the emotions run a little bit higher when we meet them.”

Despite drawing from history, despite taking four of six singles matches, the Blue Knights couldn’t defeat the defending Class L champion. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t make Concord work for its 5-4 win.

West freshman Courtney Montifield won his No. 1 match against Concord’s Will Hartigan.

The No. 3 singles match pitted Blue Knight Kevin Lee against Ed Lee. The Lees played to an 8-6 tiebreaker in favor of Kevin. Rob Heestand, a West veteran, defeated Concord’s Austin Scott, 8-3, and Dylan Fischer walked away with an 8-0 shutout over Crimson Tide captain Mason Caccia.

Scott Pince prevailed over West’s Dustin Metayer, 8-6, and Scott Levick posted an 8-5 win against Nate Denoncourt for Concord’s two singles wins.

Entering doubles action down 4-2, the Crimson Tide duos took the final three matches with relative ease.

Ed Lee and Austin Scott teamed up to avenge their singles losses with an 8-4 win over West’s Fischer and newcomer Andrew Weeks. Pince and Hartigan beat the Montifield-Metayer combo, 8-2, and Levick and Caccia took home an 8-4 win over Kevin Lee and Heestand.

“On the road against a strong team, this helped us to get a measuring stick. It never hurts to get tested early,” said Concord head coach Dave Page. “There’s a lot of tradition here, and it’ll help make the seniors more comfortable with being leaders.”