After a year of uncertainty, there’s been one constant with the Salisbury boys tennis team: the play of its doubles teams early on in 2021.

Head coach Stan Fidrych is familiar with No. 1 doubles player CJ Ekdahl from the 2019 season, but the rest of the Falcons are new to the sport. One wouldn’t know it judging by their early-season performances.

The two tandems have combined to go 9-1 for the Falcons, who are 2-3 as a team in the early going of the season. The only doubles loss came on Monday when the No. 2 team of Drew Hines and Danny Scialla came up short against a Notre Dame (Green Pond) duo, 6-4, 6-3.

“I think Notre Dame (Green Pond) is a good team, and we just came up a little short,” Fidrych said. “We won at No. 1 singles, but our second and third singles players are freshmen. They are developing, but they just aren’t there yet to replace what we lost last year. But our No. 1 doubles team is undefeated, and they won again today.”

That first doubles team - which includes Ekdahl and first-year player Baxter Reihman - hasn’t been tested much in 2021 yet. Their victory in straight sets (6-0, 6-3) against the Crusaders kept the Falcons’ duo in cruise control thus far.

“And the matches they’ve won, only one of them was close,” Fidrych said. “It was a tiebreaker at Saucon Valley. They won that one. And everything else they’ve won in straight sets … When you can get an athlete who is 6-foot-4 and teach him how to hold a tennis racquet and play the net, and you have an experienced guy serving and doing everything for the team, that seems to be working.”

With his 6-4 frame, Reihman provides size and length that not many opponents are familiar with on the court. With him at the net, paired with Ekdahl’s experience and tennis familiarity, this Falcons’ duo has a chance to be something special.

“If my doubles win, I have to have a singles team win as well,” Fidrych said. “With Chris [Marinos] never playing at No. 1 singles before, he’s starting to calm down and realize he’s got some experience. That’s what he did today and won.”

The other doubles duo isn’t too bad, either. Hines is a junior, while Scialla is a senior. The two have generated chemistry early on in the offseason, which had transitioned to a four-game win streak to open the spring season.

“It’s an interesting team that came together after I ran the tryouts,” Fidrych said. “Dan is an athlete; he’s kind of like Baxter. He knows how to run. He knows how to block. He knows how to move around the court. And he’s not afraid to play tennis.”

The road ahead, however, will really show what the Falcons are about. Not just the doubles tandems, but the singles players will be tested in the near future as well. Salisbury is set to face Central Catholic and Moravian Academy, two of the top teams in District 11’s 2A classification, this week.