On Saturday, the six varsity players for the Lady Hornets’ Tennis team headed to Trenton for the individual District postseason competition. Four Hornets came away with medals and three punched their tickets to Sectionals next weekend.
Senior Cami Carpenter finished as the District Runner-up in Singles by beating Trenton and Kirksville, only losing to District Champion Zuzia Twarowska from Cameron. Juniors Rylee Washburn and Isabella Garr also finished as District Runners-up in Doubles after coming in as the underdogs, seeded only as the fourth seed. The duo beat the backup Trenton team in the first round of play, and then they upset the No. 1 Doubles seed of the day, the Kirksville pair of Xander and DeLeon, through a close, hard fought battle.
At one point, the Lady Hornets won six straight games after almost giving away their second set. Their only loss of the day came to the No. 2 seed from Trenton’s top pair in the district championship match, which came down to a tense final tie-break in the third set. These three hornet players will all represent Chillicothe tennis in the individual sectional round of play next weekend in Excelsior.
Throughout the rest of the day, junior Bryton BeVelle earned a respected third place medal by winning her first match, dropping her second match to the district champion, but then battling back to win her final match in a very tight head-to-head against Kirksville’s top singles player.
In addition, Chillicothe’s Madison Kieffer and Micah Crowe fought hard in their first round of Doubles play against the soon-to-be district champions from Trenton, winning multiple games in each set but coming away a few games short of the win. The pair looked the strongest they have all season especially against such a worthy opponent.
The Lady Hornets begin Team District play with the Semi-final matches against the Trenton team at their home courts at Danner Park on Monday at 4 pm.
