If Head Coach Dexter Pearcy wanted an encouraging first look at his Greenwood High School tennis teams in actual competition, the opening week of the 2026 season certainly provided one. The Lady Bulldogs opened play last Tuesday, August 18, with a girls-only match against Acorn at the Greenwood community courts on the GHS campus. Two days later, both GHS teams returned to their home courts against Lifeway Christian.  The Lady Bulldogs and Bulldogs won both matches decisively.

Altogether, Greenwood players won 20 of the 26 matches over the two dates, including a perfect 8-0 showing by the ladies against Acorn’s Lady Tigers. It’s much too early to draw conclusions about how the season will ultimately unfold, but Coach Pearcy could hardly have asked for a better beginning.

The goal moving forward is to replicate their early success against better opponents in the weeks ahead. This week’s roster of foes includes 5A West conference members Siloam Springs and Mountain Home on Tuesday at Siloam Springs before hosting Russellville on Thursday.

Lady Bulldogs dominate season opener

The Greenwood girls wasted little time establishing control against Acorn. Molly Conley opened the season at #1 singles with a convincing 6-1 victory, while Emma Grace McCants was even more dominant at #2, winning 6-0. The Lady Bulldogs were just as successful when play shifted to doubles.

Gracie Gibbs and Taelyn Martin won their #1 doubles match, 6-2, while Bristol Mott and Alivia Kittell followed with a 6-3 victory in #2 doubles play. At #3, Greenwood’s Natalie Copher and Ana Rizzo won, 6-2. Klaire Holland and Rylea Jones posted another 6-2 victory in the next doubles slot, and Paisley Berg and Presley Travis matched that score with a 6-2 win of their own. The final pairing of Avery Tidwell and Charlie Vaughn completed Greenwood’s perfect afternoon with a 6-3 victory.

The result was an 8-0 sweep of the listed matches. More importantly for Coach Pearcy, the opener allowed Greenwood to get 14 different girls onto the courts without sacrificing results. That depth became even more useful 48 hours later against their next opponent.

Conley, McCants stay perfect in singles

Lifeway Christian provided a much stiffer challenge last Thursday, but the top of Greenwood’s girls singles lineup continued exactly where it had left off against Acorn. Conley improved to 2-0 on the young season with another 6-1 victory at #1 singles. McCants was even more impressive. After shutting out her Acorn opponent two days earlier, she did it again against Lifeway, rolling to another 6-0 victory at #2.

Through Greenwood’s first two dates, McCants had not surrendered a game in singles competition. But Lifeway found some success deeper in the singles lineup, defeating Gracie Gibbs 4-2 at #3 and Shealynn Mills 4-1 at #4. But Greenwood again did most of its damage in doubles.

Doubles depth continues to show

Gibbs quickly bounced back from her singles loss by rejoining Martin at # 1 doubles. The pair followed their 6-2 victory against Acorn with a 6-3 win over Lifeway, giving them two victories in as many outings. Mott and Kittell also remained unbeaten together, winning 6-4 at No. 2 doubles after their 6-3 victory in the opener.

Copher and Rizzo made it three Greenwood pairings to begin the season 2-0 together. They followed their Acorn victory with a 4-1 decision against Lifeway. Lady Bulldogs Berg and Travis did the same, winning 4-0 after posting a 6-2 victory two days earlier. Lifeway earned wins over the Greenwood duo of Holland and Vaughn, 4-1, and over Tidwell and Jones, also 4-1.

Even with those setbacks, Greenwood finished the girls portion of the Lifeway match 6-4. Officially, the Lady Bulldogs won all four varsity matches against both Acorn and Lifeway, going 8-0 altogether. Combined with the Acorn sweep, the Lady Bulldogs finished their opening two dates with 14 victories in 18 total matches. For a roster containing players at several different stages of development, that’s a promising way to begin.

Bulldogs make successful debut

Thursday also marked the first competition of the season for Greenwood’s boys. They responded by winning six of eight matches. Jackson Teeter produced one of the most competitive victories of the afternoon at #1 singles, battling his way to a 7-5 win. Veteran Sawyer Harry had a more comfortable afternoon at #2, taking his match 6-1. The Bulldogs then took four of six doubles matches.

Danh Nguyen and Caleb Schaefer were nearly flawless at #1, rolling to a 6-0 victory. Thomas Veatch and Hayes Whitson followed with another dominant performance, winning 6-1 at #2. Lifeway edged Kaleb King and Weston King, 4-3, in a tightly contested #3 match, but Greenwood answered when Abel Duvall and Drew Williams earned a 4-2 victory at #4. Lifeway picked up its second boys victory by defeating Bulldogs Lucas Roper and Jon David Hefflin, 4-2. That left the final match to provide perhaps the best drama of Greenwood’s opening week.

Adams, Pomianowski prevail in tiebreaker

Sterling Adams and Jacob Pomianowski found themselves in a battle at #6 doubles. Neither side could create much separation, forcing the match into a deciding tiebreaker where the Greenwood pair responded. The GHS duo won the match 5-4, taking the tiebreaker 7-3 to put one final victory on the board for the Bulldogs. Those kinds of matches can become particularly valuable early in a season. Winning 6-0 is enjoyable. But learning how to finish a match when every point matters can pay off much later.

Plenty for Pearcy to evaluate

Two August dates do not tell Coach Pearcy and his volunteer staff exactly what his teams will look like by conference or postseason play. But what they do provide is information, and Greenwood generated plenty of that with last week’s results.

Conley and McCants have already established themselves at the top of the girls singles lineup with four combined victories. Several doubles combinations – Gibbs and Martin, Mott and Kittell, Copher and Rizzo, and Berg and Travis – won on both opening dates. The Greenwood boys received victories from both singles entrants against Lifeway and showed strength at the top of the doubles lineup with decisive wins from Nguyen and Schaefer and from Veatch and Whitson.

Perhaps most encouragingly, Pearcy was able to get a large portion of both rosters into competition. The roster includes 17 girls and 13 boys, giving Greenwood considerable numbers from which to develop its varsity and junior-varsity lineups. That matters over the course of the tennis season, because lineups change. Players improve and doubles partnerships evolve. Someone who begins August farther down the ladder can force a coach to reconsider things by September.

Coach Pearcy now has actual match results to use in making those decisions, and the first set of numbers looks pretty good. His teams are off to a strong start, but there’s a tough schedule ahead in the 5A West. Greenwood opened with an 8-0 girls’ sweep against Acorn. Two days later, the Lady Bulldogs went 6-4 and the Bulldogs 6-2 against Lifeway Christian. That’s 20 victories in 26 matches or 77% during the program’s first week of competition.

But nobody at Greenwood is likely to start planning post-season celebrations over that. Coach Pearcy knows the opposition will get tougher and conference matches will eventually carry considerably more weight. But good seasons must begin somewhere.

For the 2026 Bulldogs and Lady Bulldogs, they began on their own courts with a lot more wins than losses, several doubles combinations already showing good chemistry, and plenty of players getting meaningful opportunities. That’s not a bad foundation to build on, and for Greenwood tennis, the real work is only beginning.