After a summer full of construction, the Chillicothe girls tennis team hosted their season home opener on the beautiful new courts at Danner Park on Monday night. Thanks to the generosity of the Livingston County Commissioners and the Chillicothe Parks Department, the entire tennis complex was renovated over the past three months, and the Kirksville Lady Tigers came for the lady hornets home opener dual. CHS walked away from the night dominantly successful with a varsity team 8-1 victory.
The night started fast with quick and strong doubles wins on all three varsity courts while JV play started off strong in doubles as well. Then in Singles, the lady hornets started off slow. At one point, five of the six Chillicothe singles players found themselves losing. However, all but one of the lady hornets were able to mount impressive comebacks from their deficits. It was exciting to watch the last few weeks worth of work at difficult tournaments pay off when CHS was able to maintain the mental fortitude to battle back in their matches. Micah Crowe found herself losing by one almost her entire match, but in the last three games, she held off her #1 opponent to clinch a victory. Keeley Shira and Sarah George also found themselves down a game against the #4 and #6 respectively but fought back for the win. Finally, Jasmine McClean started her #5 singles competition down 0-5 with the match almost finished, but she slowly chipped away at that score to eventually come back and win 8-6.
JV also had a strong showing as all 25 lady hornet team members got to play against Kirksville’s equally large squad. Many of the athletes got two matches each, which rarely happens for JV, including some singles matches in fact.
Varsity scores were as follows:
Team Score — Chillicothe 8 – Kirksville 1
#1 Doubles — Micah Crowe & Keonnia Morgan beat Darnel & Manikandan 8-0
#2 Doubles — Bianca Clark & Keeley Shira beat Gardner & Shoop 8-1
#3 Doubles — Jasmine McLean & Summer Gatson beat Snyder & Dawson 8-2
#1 Singles — Crowe beat Darnel 8-6
#2 Singles — Morgan lost to Manikandan 7-9
#3 Singles — Clark beat Gardner 8-4
#4 Singles — Shira beat Shoop 8-5
#5 Singles — McLean beat Snyder 9-7
#6 Singles — Sarah George beat Dawson 9-7
JV scores were as follows:
Rian Mathews & Lexi Lybarger beat Seedorf & Seedorf 6-1
Lydia Bonderer & Lexy Smith beat Emma H & Calowell 6-1
Trixie Leppin & Arisha Shafiq beat Paityn B. & Wallace 6-6, tiebreak 7-3
Anya Moore & Leighton Kelly lost to Miller & Johns 3-4
Kierra Williams & Rylee Rempel beat Williams & Speale 4-1
Mackenzie Bagley & Celia Quintero lost to Hetrick & Yanagi 0-4
Lydia Bonderer & Arisha Shafiq beat Hodger & Beregouska 4-0
Trixie Leppin & Lexy Smith beat Darnell & Shalini B 4-0
Dayahna White & Callaway Carmen lost to Lange & Dugas 2-4
Gracie Moore & Maya LaPage lost to Davis & Lee 0-4
Emily Ford & Bailee Medlin lost to Lindy & teammate 0-4
Lexy Smith beat KHS #12 in a JV singles match 4-0
Lexi Lybarger lost to KHS #9 4-6
Singles matches were played on additional courts but scores were not logged for singles matches for Rian Mathews, Rylee Rempel, or Summer Gatson.
