Salisbury opened play in the District 11 Class 2A tennis tournament on Tuesday by hosting Jim Thorpe in the opening round of play. The Falcons went into the tournament as the third seed facing the sixth-seeded Olympians. Salisbury got off to a fast start and the Olympians were unable to overcome the early deficit and fell 4-1, eliminating them from the team competition.

Early on in the match, Salisbury had leads on every court. The only Olympians player to come back from their early deficit to win a match was at number-three singles, where Trista Gehris came back to take a 6-4 win over Mackenzie Hankee and then finished out the match with a 6-1 win in the second set.

In number-one singles, Salisbury’s Brynn Kubinsky defeated Christy McLean in straight sets to start the day for the Falcons.

“I felt ready to play and really excited because this is our first round of team districts, so I really wanted to come out and win to help my team get to the next round,” said Kubinsky. “We’ve been playing pretty well and I think we have a lot of potential and we’re pretty strong in each of our positions, so we’re in pretty good shape and ready for the competition.”

The match of the day came in number-two singles as Jim Thorpe’s Gabby Nunez battled Salisbury’s Paige Gibbons for over two hours with the match going to a 10-point tiebreaker in the third set after each of the first two sets also went to tiebreakers.

After an early lead by Gibbons, Nunez battled back and went to a tiebreaker where she fell 8-6. The second set swung wildly back-and-forth before a 7-4 tiebreaker win tied the match at one set a piece.

The two players played a 10-point tiebreaker to decide the match. Gibbons, who appeared to be wearing down late in the second set, was able to rally some energy in the third and win the tiebreaker 10-3. Ironically, the team match had already been decided well before Nunez and Gibbons were finished, but the two battled as if their match would decide the outcome.

“That was fun to watch,” said Salisbury coach Rob Benson. “They both played really well and really battled. The interesting thing about it was that we had already locked up the team win but they didn’t care, they both just fought hard to win that match for their team.”

In doubles, Salisbury won both matches in straight sets with Krista Bonge and Marcie Silberman winning in straight sets 6-3 and 6-4 and Maisie Oliver and Anna Bitar winning 6-0 and 7-5.

Unfortunately for the Falcons, their run in the team competition came to an end against Bethlehem Catholic when they lost 4-1 to the Golden Hawks. Kubinsky picked up the only win of the day for the Falcons, beating Cara Magliochetti 7-5, 2-6, 10-6. Bethlehem Catholic advanced to play Moravian Academy in the team finals.

In District 11 doubles play this week, Kubinsky and Gibbons picked up wins in the opening round and the quarterfinals to advance to the semis where they will play Bethlehem Catholic’s Magliochetti and Shannon Stewart, who defeated Salisbury’s Bonge and Silberman in the first round.