AIKEN — The race to a state championship started Tuesday with a race of a different kind for the South Aiken boys' tennis team.

It was a race to see who could end their match first.

South Aiken, the No. 2 seed in the Class AAAA Lower State bracket, easily cruised past 15th-seeded Darlington, sweeping every set and every match to blank the visiting Falcons and move on to Thursday's second-round match against rival Aiken High.

It was a more leisurely attitude Tuesday at the Weeks Tennis Center, where even with a lineup loaded with underclassmen the T-Breds had years of experience in their favor against a Falcons team composed primarily of players who hadn't picked up a racket, much less played a competitive match, before this season.

First-round matchups in big brackets can often produce mismatches like this one, but even with a clear advantage it was key for the T-Breds to stay sharp.

"Definitely keeping your focus," said head coach Dee Dee Redd. "All of our lines, all of the singles won 6-0, 6-0. My doubles won 8-0. Sometimes it's easy to lose your focus with that, so I'd say that's important, and to play kind. We were playing the 15th seed today, and everybody had a great attitude. Everybody played great tennis."

David Baker's opponent at No. 1 singles stopped between points to ask Baker how he's so good at hitting low shots with cut spin - so Baker showed him where on the strings and how to hit the ball.

Both Kiyu Hughes at No. 2 singles and Coda Hughes at No. 3 had their opponents offer to hit long returns so they could chase them down and hit tweener shots between their legs - not to showboat, but because the Falcons' inexperienced players just wanted to see it.

Landen Reagan toned down his powerful attack and opted for a few softer, more approachable shots so that he and his opponent at No. 5 singles could put together rallies.

It was Reagan who won the race to finish first, closing out his victory in right around 27 minutes. Timmy Videtto punctuated his win at No. 4 right after, and then a steady stream of winning scores were turned in within the next few minutes. The only reason the full match lasted anywhere close to an hour was because Darlington needed to send one of its players out to face Xander Leigh and Nathan Mandel at No. 2 doubles after finishing his singles match.

"Today really was a great first, fun day for playoffs," Redd said. "We'll be back out here (Wednesday), definitely a hard practice, and then we're back against Aiken on Thursday."

The difficulty level will increase in the second round as the T-Breds and Hornets meet for round three of their rivalry this season. Aiken was a 4-2 winner over North Augusta on Monday, thanks to singles wins from Henry Vaughters, Aiden McElwain, Alex Hammel and Josh Woiczechowski. South Aiken swept the shorthanded Hornets during the regular season, winning 6-0 and 5-1.

"We had won against Aiken in the two rounds of our region, but there's never a guarantee," Redd said. "You don't know, so we will see what happens on Thursday."