On Monday night, the CHS girls tennis team traveled to play against the Kirksville lady tigers on the Truman State University courts under beautiful weather conditions. The night started slow for Chillicothe, who dropped the #1 & #3 doubles matches quickly. However, the #2 doubles pair of seniors Gatson & Mathews battled incredibly hard for a long match to eventually pull out a very close win. That helped the team stay in the hunt for a varsity team win.
When the team shifted over to singles play, Leppin and Smith both battled hard on their courts but eventually fell to power serving and tough angled ground shots from their competitors. With the team score at 1-4 already, the night look practically guaranteed for Kirksville, but then, slowly over the next hour, the lady hornets battled back on their remaining courts. Once again, seniors Gatson and Mathews shined in their follow-up matches, winning handedly and suddenly taking the team score to 3-4. With two matches left on the court, the coaches made the remaining players aware that the team win was still within grasp. This spurred Bonderer to mount an impressive come-from-behind win at the #2 singles slot after originally being down a handful of games at one point. She fought hard to force the match to a tie break, which she then dominated, never falling behind from then on. Unfortunately, on the court beside her, the #6 left-handed hitter from Kirksville proved to difficult for Moore to beat, so the team final ended up 4-5 overall. However, Coach Chambers was thrilled to see her team never give up and fight for every last match, no matter the odds.
Results were as follows:
#1 Doubles — Lexy Smith & Lydia Bonderer lost to Kaedyn Hill & Alyson Snyder 2-8
#2 Doubles — Summer Gatson & Rian Mathews won over Varsha Manikandan & Alexis Gardner 9-7
#3 Doubles — Trixie Leppin & Anya Moore lost to Braelyn Johns & Nora Seedorf 0-8
#1 Singles — Smith lost to Hill 5-8
#2 Singles — Bonderer won over 8-8 (tiebreak 7-4)
#3 Singles — Gatson won over Snyder 8-4
#4 Singles — Mathews won over Johns 8-2
#5 Singles — Leppin lost to Seedorf 3-8
#6 Singles — Moore lost to Cardner 1-8
JV Results were as follows:
England & Shafiq lost to Lee & Williams 6-8
Kelly & Rempel beat Miller & Waddington 9-7
Nagel & Albrecht lost to Spear & Caldwell 4-6
Bagley & Gabrielson lost to Wallace & Mullins 4-6
Fagan & Kennedy lost to Dawson & Page 5-7
Leifker & Ford lost to Beregouska & Paradara 1-6
White & Moore won over Brubacker & Head 6-2
Peery & Leifker lost to Atiba & Allemang 0-6
Moore & White lost to Paradara & Adebola 3-6
Shafiq lost to Faith 0-6
Nagel won over Lee 4-0