The Friday Harbor tennis team opened the season on the right foot Monday with a victory at home over Coupeville.

But not without a fight.

The Wolverines took a commanding lead early in the match as Peter Duggins and Michael Sandifer tallied straight-set victories when the 1A rivals squared off in singles’ competition. Duggins, a junior, outlasted Ben Hayes 6-3, 7-5, to bag the No. 1 singles match while Sandifer, a senior, thumped Coupeville’s No. 2 player, Esten Humphrey, 6-0, 6-2.

Down 2-0 in the match, Coupeville rallied behind its doubles teams. The contest was up for grabs after Jordan Lamb and Conner Tasoff netted the first set of their match against Friday Harbor’s No. 1 doubles team of Pablo Lopez and Zach Milkis, 6-4. But Lopez and Milkis erased the deficit by taking the second set 6-4.

The two teams traded 16 hard-fought points until Lopez and Milkis tallied two in a row to claim the tie-breaker at 10-8 and, ultimately, the match for the Wolverines.

At that point, the Wolverine lead was insurmountable — the first team to win three matches in the best-of-five format takes the match — but Coupeville refused to quit. The Wolves’ No. 2 and No. 3 doubles teams won the next four sets, together winning 24 of 32 games, and walked off the court with their heads held high despite the 3-2 defeat.

Knowing his heavily-favored Wolverine squad had dodged a bullet, Friday Harbor Head Coach Dick Barnes breathed a sigh of relief.

“We eked one out,” he said.

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The Wolverines are on the road Thursday at Stanwood.