Beginning with last season, Coach Chambers added the Moberly Lady Spartans to the CHS girls tennis schedule to purposefully play a strong, well-hitting team in the gap week before districts. This Wednesday, Moberly visited Danner Park for the second year of that partnership. Both coaches really appreciate facing a non-district, non-conference opponent in a high-quality match just before the post-season, and this year was no different. In the inaugural meeting, Moberly took the team win, but this year, Chillicothe dominated on varsity all night long. The first couple of games in all the doubles matches looked close, but after game three on each court, the Lady Hornets broke away to sweep the doubles competition in resounding fashion. Coach Chambers was thrilled to see such confident play from her athletes against such good opposing hitters.
The singles matches proved a bit closer in score, including one loss, but CHS showcased incredible accuracy all night with their line and corner shots. The top three singles players and the new varsity freshman all won quickly and easily as they are all peaking at just the right time in the season. Anya Moore was battling a tough illness, fought hard for a strong doubles win, but had nothing left in the tank for singles. But the highlight of the night came from the final court to finish, well after everyone else, when senior #4 player Rian Mathews made the comeback of the season. She was down 4-7 in her singles match-up but dug deep with very evenly matched, long rallies to string together three games in a row, bringing the score to 7-7. Then, she dropped a game, making it 7-8. In the final game, the players went to duece four times before Mathews finally squeaked out that advantage to tie it up at 8-8. The match was running so late at that point, the court lights even had to be turned on. Mathews moved into the tiebreak but fell behind instantly. The winning points alternated between each player, every single point, so Mathews was always behind by one point or tied. Finally, when the two netters reached 5-5 in the tiebreak score, Mathews found a last burst of energy to incredibly take the last two points in a row and win the match. What a beautiful finish for a committed senior during her last regular-season match on home court.
Results were as follows:
#1 Doubles — Lexy Smith and Lydia Bonderer won 8-2 over Snodgrass & L. Shannon
#2 Doubles — Summer Gatson and Rian Mathews won 8-4 over Owen & Adam
#3 Doubles — Anya Moore & Isabel Nagel won 8-2 over Mudd & I. Shannon
#1 Singles — Smith won 8-3 over Snodgrass
#2 Singles — Bonderer won 8-3 over L. Shannon
#3 Singles — Gatson won 8-4 over Owen
#4 Singles — Mathews won 8-8 (tiebreak 7-5) over Adam
#5 Singles — Moore lost 5-8 to Mudd
#6 Singles — Nagel won 8-3 over I. Shannon