The lady hornets tennis team moved to 2-2 in MEC play on Thursday night after dominantly beating the Benton lady cardinals at Danner Park 8-1. With continued hot weather, the hornets were glad to quickly and strongly win almost all their matches with just a few matches going down to close scores. Coach Chambers was proud of how confidently all of her players handled themselves. She can tell that the tough tournaments they entered early on in the season are paying off now with the physical stamina and mental fortitude seen when girls dispute calls properly and stand up for the correct process and when they battle back from being down in games.
Thursday night, #1 singles player Micah Crowe hit the longest rallies every point with her opponent, and while the match did not go Crowe’s way, she played beautiful tennis the entire match. Keeley Shira, Jasmine McLean, and Summer Gatson all handily held their opponents quickly. Sarah George found herself down 4-7 about to lose her #5 singles match but calmly battled back to pick up five straight games to win 9-7. Doubles proved much closer with Crowe and George win quickest. Bianca Clark and Shira played an incredibly tight match at #1 doubles where they found themselves down by one game at each change over until mid-match when they finally picked up two games in a row to take the lead. They squeaked out a win right at the end 9-7 with confident partner play and great communication. And finally, McLean and Gatson had a heated doubles match with lots of back-and-forth scoring, calls, and questions. Coach Chambers was initially worried that these younger new varsity players would become frazzled by the tense situation, but she was impressed to see both athletes stay calm and fight their way back for a win as well, which shows tremendous growth over the past month of play.
Results were as follows:
#1 Doubles — Clark & Shira beat Alyssa Martinez & Bella Thomas 9-7
#2 Doubles — Crowe & George beat Kenna Guyer & Riley Kretzer 8-1
#3 Doubles — McLean & Gatson beat Jade Mabion & Gina Lesny 8-6
#1 Singles — Crowe lost to Thomas 2-8
#2 Singles — Clark beat Martinez by forfeit
#3 Singles — Shira beat Guyer 8-1
#4 Singles — McLean beat Mabion 8-0
#5 Singles — George beat Lesny 9-7
#6 Singles — Gatson beat Snider 8-0
JV Doubles #1 — Rian Mathews & Lexi Lybarger beat Lorena Izquierdo & Chloe Hall 6-1
JV Doubles #2 — Lydia Bonderer & Lexy Smith beat Karmen Phillips & Delilah Snider 6-0
JV Doubles #3 — Trixie Leppin & Arisha Shafiq beat Raven Miller-Drag & Adrianna Redmond 6-1
JV Doubles #4 — Anya Moore & Leighton Kelly beat Stormy Miller-Draf & Lydia Swords 6-1
JV Doubles #5 — Kierra Williams & Rylee Rempel beat Benton 6-2
JV Singles — Celia Quintero lost to Ryleigh Robinson 3-6
JV Singles — Lybarger beat Benton 4-0
JV Singles — Mathews beat Benton 4-0
JV Singles — Bonderer beat Benton 4-1
JV Singles — Smith beat Benton 4-0
