History teaches that if the goal is to win the R.I. Interscholastic League boys state team tennis championship, then it’s not a good idea to be the winning team when South Kingstown and Barrington trade strokes during the regular season.

But then both South Kingstown coach Andy Carr and Barrington mentor Dick Ernst are professors of ground strokes and volleys rather than treaties and constitutions, so it’s a safe bet both coaches will be trying to direct their team to victory this morning when the Rebels and Eagles meet in the showdown of undefeated Division I net powers.

Barrington will come into the 11 a.m. match on its home court riding a three-year, 30-match victory string in regular-season competition, but South Kingstown has won nine consecutive state championships.

During both the 2006 and 2007 seasons, Barrington won the two regular-season meetings between the two teams. But in both years, South Kingstown came back and defeated the Eagles in the playoffs. In 2006, it was in the semifinal round and last year it was in the state title match.

So this morning the Eagles and Rebels, two public schools on the opposite sides of Narragansett Bay, will stage another chapter in what has become a classic Rhode Island high school sports rivalry.

You don’t need to know the finer points of a drop-volley to enjoy that type of competition.

One good turn . . .

Speaking of Carr, the veteran South Kingstown mentor was named the 2007 New England High School Coach of the Year by the New England Chapter of the U.S. Tennis Association.

. . . deserves another

Also, Ernst, who has coached high school tennis and hockey teams as well as college tennis teams during his 46-year coaching career, will be one of 11 individuals inducted into the R.I. Interscholastic League Hall of Fame at the Hall’s annual induction dinner on May 7 at Quidnessett Country Club.

This year’s induction class includes athletes, coaches and officials who have spanned seven decades of Interscholastic League competition.

Joining Ernst in the induction class will be Brian Lawton, the former Mount St. Charles hockey star who was the first American to be selected No. 1 in the National Hockey League draft; former Lincoln High three-sport star Maureen Dyer; Thom Spann, Hope High’s nationally recognized track coach; Don Panciera, the La Salle football star of the late 1940s; North Kingstown boys and girls volleyball coach Joanne Fitts; Joe Conley, who coached both St. Xavier and Cranston East girls basketball teams to state titles; and longtime Interscholastic League game official Leroy Archibald. Three former coaches, Louis “Duke” Abbruzzi, Jim Ahern and Henry “Skip” Kenyon will be inducted posthumously.

April 30 is the deadline for purchasing tickets for the dinner. Tickets may be purchased by calling the Interscholastic League office, 272-9844.

jgillool@projo.com