Hornets: SPC champs.
By Mike London
Salisbury Post
SALISBURY – Salisbury’s boys tennis program completely dominated the Central Carolina Conference from 2010 to 2025.
COVID prevailed in 2020. Ledford sat atop the league in 2021. Salisbury won the other 14 CCC championships in that 16-season stretch.
Realignment and the NCHSAA’s switch to eight classifications meant a transition for the Hornets from the comfort zone of a 1A/2A league to the 4A/5A South Piedmont Conference. There were reasons for the Hornets to take a step back. They were taking on bigger schools. They had a rookie coach. They had four new faces in the singles lineup.
Long story short, they didn’t step back an inch. The Hornets (19-3) not only won the SPC, they went 14-0 in the league matches. They beat some very serious playoff opponents – Lincoln Charter and East Burke – before finishing the season with a loss in a regional final to 4A dual team state runner-up Lake Norman Charter.
Junior AJ Jarrell and senior Bryant Davis, who played 1 and 2 singles and No. 1 doubles, led the Hornets. Jarrell racked up his third straight conference player of the year award and also is the Rowan County Player of the Year for the third straight time. Davis was the team leader. They were the only two returning starters from the 2025 team.
“The league competition was quite a bit better for us this year,” Jarrell said. “No offense to anyone, but most of the teams we played last year weren’t so hot. There were some good No. 1s at all the Rowan schools and the Northwest guy was really good. But I still would still say Bryant is better than anyone I faced in the conference.”
The Hornets had to deal with illness early in the season. In early 6-3 wins against Northwest Cabarrus and Concord, Salisbury appeared to be vulnerable. They did not look like a team that would run the table.
“Because so many guys got sick, we went quite a few matches without having our real lineup on the court,” Jarrell said. “Give our new coach a lot of credit for holding it together until guys got healthy. For a first-year coach, I thought he did a really good job. He jumped right into it.”
The new coach was Jander Rodas-Palacios, who was an All-Central Carolina Conference player for the Hornets in 2017, 2018 and 2019. His heritage is Guatemalan. He graduated from UNC Wilmington in 2024 with a business degree. With bilingual and business skills, he is now a local realtor, but he found time to coach the Hornets.
“He can still play well,” Jarrell said. “Bryant Davis and I playing together against Coach and either our No. 3 guy or No. 4 guy really helped us get better as a doubles team.”
Jarrell teamed with 2025 SHS graduate Gray Davis in doubles when he was a sophomore. This season, he teamed with Gray’s younger brother, Bryant. The results were splendid. They made it to the state individual tournament as a doubles team.
“We were a different doubles teams this year because the Davis brothers have different styles,” Jarrell said. “Gray was very steady and together we got just everything back until our opponent made a mistake. Bryant is more aggressive. He wants to hit a winner every point. He attacks. When you’re as aggressive as he is, you’re going to make some mistakes, but you also can win quicker points. About halfway through the season, we figured things out and we came on strong. We were a tough team by the end of the season.”
Late in the season, as Salisbury made a playoff run, Jarrell took on the best of the best in 4A tennis in No. 1 singles matches – East Burke’s Luke Borders and Lake Norman Charter’s Tejas Sridhar.
Sridhar beat Borders in the finals for the 4A individual state championship.
“I lost 6-4, 6-2 to Borders, but that probably was the best singles match I played all season,” Jarrell said. “I played aggressive, played that Bryant Davis style of tennis, and found out I could hit with him. Border is a super player, but I won a lot of points and I won some games. When you play the higher-level guys late in the season, they don’t make mistakes, so you have to be aggressive if you’re going to take any points.”
Jarrell says his best singles win came late in the season when Salisbury went to Northwest Cabarrus, the SPC’s second-best team. Northwest sophomore No. 1 Kaveen Chidambaram was one of the league’s best players, probably the best non-Hornet.
“He won the first game – on my serve,” Jarrell said. “I had to re-set for a minute and ask myself what was going on, but after that, I played really well. I won 12 games in a row for 6-0, 6-0, and our team won 9-0 in what was expected to be a tough test. That was a very good day.”
Jarrell said his plan is to stay aggressive as a senior next spring, to keep attacking. He enjoys that style of play.
He also attacks the books effectively. His dream college is NC State, where his father went to school, and he hopes to pursue an academic future in Raleigh rather than play tennis at a smaller school. If he gets tennis offers, he’ll listen, but if he’s accepted at NC State, that will be an easy decision for him.
“I’ve got on an NS State shirt right now,” he said.
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The All-Rowan County team looks very similar to the Rowan list on the All-SPC team, although Carson’s No. 3 player and West’s No. 2 player, who won frequently at No. 1 doubles, were added.
All-Rowan County
Salisbury – AJ Jarrell, Bryant Davis, Aiden Moss, Henry Walser, Owen Hammill, Luke Yang
Carson – Will Welch, Landon Jones, Griffin Bostian
East Rowan – Thomas Stokes, Will Kesler
West Rowan – Callen Batts, Phineas Mixon
South Rowan – Coen Overby
Player of the Year – AJ Jarrell, Salisbury
Coach of the Year – Jander Rodas-Palacios, Salisbury
