The Gilbert girls’ tennis managed to have a great season this year with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Lady Indians head coach Patti Spires’ motto this year was “Be a part of the solution, not the problem”, which meant following the guidelines established by the SC High School League to ensure that the tennis season was safe.

With only 4 Region 5-3A teams with tennis programs, Gilbert had to play matches as many non-region as region matches. The Lady Indians ended up with and overall record of 9-2 and were undefeated in the region.

The toughest non-region match for Gilbert were the matches against Lexington and North Augusta.

Both matches went to tiebreakers, while the toughest region match was against Brookland-Cayce.

As always, the matches are normally “nail biter” matches in which the team has to make sure to pull out the “rally caps” to pull through.

Everyday the team was allowed to practice or play was a gift as the privilege to practice or to play because the covid-19 could ruin their season.

When it came to the most im proved player, Spires said it was overall all 14 members.

Winning the region title was Gilbert’s biggest achievement to date.

It was able to advance to the 2nd round of the Class 3A playoffs due to a forfeit, but lost at home to Oceanside Collegiate.

(River Bluff also saw its defense of the Class 5A title end on Oct. 22 with a 4-2 loss at nemesis Wando.)

Another motto Spires had this year was “preparation is the separation”.

Considering the Lady Indians had faced some strong Class 3A teams in the state and recognized that those teams did not get where they were without extra hard work, they also desired that same results success.