On Tuesday night, the Chillicothe Girls Tennis team mounted a huge comeback to win their fourth straight Team District Championship, which included three separate match tie-breaks. Chillicothe traveled to Kirksville as the visiting No. 2 seed to take on the No. 1 seeded Tigers.
Washburn and Garr quickly won their No. 2 Doubles match-up 8-3. Carpenter and BeVelle lost their No. 1 Doubles match 4-8. After starting the No. 3 Doubles match down 2-4 initially, Kieffer and Crowe mounted a solid comeback to eventually win their head-to-head 8-6.
As the team moved on to Singles play, junior Izzy Garr won her best two-out-of-three-sets match 6-2, 6-1. Then, senior Madison Kieffer dropped her Singles match 0-6, 0-6. Next, junior Rylee Washburn confidently won 6-3, 6-0. On the fourth court, sophomore Micah Crowe battled back after dropping her first set 4-6 to then win the second set 6-1, but she lost in a nail-biting third set tie-break 11-13. This brought team play to a 4-3 score with two tight matches left to play.
Senior Cami Carpenter and junior Bryton BeVelle both lost their first sets, 4-6, 3-6 respectively. Then, BeVelle slowly battled back to win her second set in a tie break, which sent her match into a third set tie break. BeVelle was unable to finish that tie break before Carpenter finished the team win for her. While that tight match was happening, Carpenter started slow in her second set, again down 3-4. Then, she stunningly won three straight games by breaking Kirksville’s No. 1 powerhouse serve twice to win the second set. In the third set tie break, Carpenter again started out in a hole, down 1-6. She then won 9 of the next 10 points in a row, shocking the entire crowd with a final 10-8 tiebreaking win.
The Lady Hornets play in Individual Sectionals Friday at Excelsior Springs and then they host the Team Sectionals early next week at their home courts at Danner Park.
