The annual MEC individual tournament was held indoors on Wednesday due to the all-day rainstorm, and the Chillicothe Lady Hornets entered Lexy Smith & Lydia Bonderer in doubles as well as Isabel Nagel & Anya Moore in doubles. Plus, London Douglas and Jocelynn Albrecht both competed in the singles bracket. The team played on one court or another continuously from 8:30 AM until 4 PM with every Chillicothe girl playing her best tennis of the season.
In the #1 doubles position, Smith and Bonderer started the day off with a bye as the #1 seed. Then, they played Courtney & Farrell of Savannah, winning quickly 8-2 with superb net shots. Next, they faced Chloupek & Johnson of Maryville and dominated there, too, with a score of 8-1. Finally, they faced a stellar Savannah pair of Jones & Bodenhausen in the championships, played in sets. The Lady Hornets started off very strong pulling ahead 3-0, but Savannah adjusted well and started poaching everything at the net, almost leveling the match. But Smith & Bonderer’s calm experience powered through and closed out the first set 6-3. The second set proved even closer as Savannah started figuring out Chillicothe’s pair. But Smith & Bonderer locked in and hit perfect alley and corner shots along with some of their trademark net winners. The set was tied back and forth a few times, but Chillicothe came up clutch in the end, winning 6-4 on the set and taking the championship home again!
Meanwhile, the #2 doubles entry of Nagel and Moore knew they could hang with most any team in the conference even though most teams considered them underdogs as lower ranked players. They started off strong against LeBlond in a good warm-up match, winning 8-1. Then, they had to face the #2 seed of the bracket from Maryville. The entire match was never more than one game apart, and Nagel had to face her opponent from the grueling night before with some of the longest rallies and most lobs ever. The Chillicothe duo trusted their coaches and tried something brand new by playing both players at the baseline to handle the lobs until Moore could charge the net looking for volley winners while Nagel confidently handled the baseline long rallies. Together, they chipped away, long point after long point and tied the game up at 6-6. The last two games consisted of even longer points, but the Lady Hornets stuck with the new strategy that had been working and after lots of tense moments, they pulled off the massive upset to win 8-6. Then, in the semi-finals, they had to face the #3 seed from Savannah who went neck-and-neck with Smith and Bonderer a match later. Nagel and Moore could not get anything going against that Savannah pair and lost 3-8. Then, they reset for a final third place consolation match against the lower-ranked Maryville pair. It started out close for several games, but Chillicothe finally improved their purposeful ball placement and won 8-5 for the medal.
Lastly, varsity newcomers Douglas and Albrecht both received decent draws in the bracket for singles, but they knew they had an uphill battle playing other schools’ higher ranked players all day. Douglas dropped her first match against Savannah 2-8, but she mentally reset well in the next battle and won against Benton 6-1. Then, she continued those strong rallies against Cameron winning a very tight match 7-5. Then, she had to reface her same opponent from the original match, but she showed up totally different after starting off slow against her again. During the second half of that rematch, Douglas hit her strongest and sharpest points of the entire season with the hardest running she’s ever produced and came back from 0-3 to bring it to 2-3 and then 3-4. However, Savannah closed out some critical deuce points at the end to win 3-6, finishing Douglas’ day. On separate courts, Albrecht started off strong versus Benton where she won quickly and confidently 8-2. Then, she had to face the #1 player from LeBlond, who would go on to win fourth place on the day, where Albrecht lost 0-8, but the score was pretty misleading as almost every game went to deuce. Then, on the backside of the bracket, Albrecht reset and beat Cameron’s #1 player after good, long rallies 6-2. Finally, Albrecht faced the solid #4 Maryville player who had beaten Chillicothe’s Moore the night before. Albrecht held her own well and played evenly with Maryville more than most of the crowd expected. Each switchover saw her only down one game each time, but Maryville clinched the last game and won 4-6, ending Albrecht’s day. Overall, Douglas and Albrecht both tied for 7th technically as those matches are not played out for a winner after double elimination.