Bathurst High School rolls to Astley Cup tie-opening tennis win over Orange

The Hornets were in with a sniff with the set score at 5-3 in favour of Bathurst, who are hosting this week's leg after defeating Dubbo on the road last week, but the reigning champions dominated all four mixed doubles matches to eventually claim a 75-25 overall points split.

Bathurst also made a clean sweep of the boys' doubles.

The home school picked up resounding 6-love wins through boys' duo Jeorge Collins and Jacob Bicanic and girls' pairing Charlotte Simpson and Sophie McCauley.

The closest Orange came to snaring a win in the mixed doubles was a 6-3 win for Collins and Simpson over Jarryd Seib and Tabua Tuinakauvadra.

The win caps off a great run for Bathurst in this year's cup, adding to their 8-4 win over Dubbo College in last week's tie.

Bathurst High School tennis coach Paul Abbott was impressed by the team's ability to maintain their high quality of competition from a week earlier.

"That score is fantastic. We're very happy to jag those last four mixed doubles matches. They've had a few sets together now and it's starting to pay off," he said.

"Jeorge is still very young but tennis-wise he's got a lot of experience and it was on display there today.

"We're saying farewell to three of our team members this year with Scott Osbourne, Jacob Bicanic and Sophie McCauley. They've represented this team for a long time now and I'm very pleased to see them go out on a high."

Orange High coach Tim Boyle was proud of his team's effort against a Bathurst side who were up for the challenge.

"There were some really close sets and our players tried hard. I'm really proud of them," he said.

"We've had some training and matches against Gosford earlier, who we dominated, so we came in confident but we were soundly beaten today. How well we did today gives us some hope for the game against Dubbo."