On a beautiful autumn day this Wednesday, six JV lady hornets from Chillicothe High School competed in a tough North Kansas City tournament against 12 other metro schools. The event was structured as three doubles brackets based on team rankings. For Chillicothe, juniors Summer Gatson & Rian Mathews played in the A Bracket. Sophomore Lexi Lybarger and junior Trixie Leppin played in the B Bracket, and Sophomore Lydia Bonderer & Lexy Smith played in the C Bracket.
The lady hornets played confident, clean tennis all day with dominant wins in almost every match. Gatson & Mathews started off down in their first couple of matches but battled back to strong wins for three matches in a row, landing them in the A Bracket championship. Gatson’s aggressive net play and Mathews red hot serving powered them through those wins. They faced a difficult Staley High School team there where they ended up with second placed medals. Lybarger and Leppin had never played together as partners before, so they started off slow in their first match. However, once they started backside bracket play, they really started clicking and won two strong matches in a row to get back to the medal rounds. In their final matchup, they played a strong sister duo from Savannah where it was very close, going to duece every game. Lybarger and Leppin eventually lost, taking sixth place out of the 12-team bracket.
In the C Bracket, Bonderer & Smith had a bye first round due to a team no-show, but once they got started, they played well together, adjusting correctly to each opponents style of play. They quickly won their first match against Richmond to place them in the semi-finals. Then, they faced the other strong Staley pair where they matched up very evenly but eventually lost. In the third place consolation match, they dominated against RayPec to earn their third place medals. With that final win adding to the team score total, Chillicothe barely squeaked ahead of 10 other schools to earn second place overall as a team. The only JV team scoring higher out of these large KC schools was Staley High School. Coach Chambers and Coach Pyrtle were excited for these players to get such great experience under their belt with such strong results as they look to replace five of their topic six players next year with so many seniors graduating from their program. The future seems bright to continue the lady hornets tennis legacy!
Results were as follows:
A Bracket — second place for Gatson & Mathews — Chilli beat Oak Park 8-3; Chilli beat Blue Springs 8-2; Chilli beat Ruskin 8-6; Chilli lost to Staley 2-8
B Bracket — sixth place for Lybarger & Leppin — CHS bye first round; CHS lost to Staley 0-8; CHS beat Maryville 8-2; CHS beat Blue Springs 8-2; CHS lost to Savannah 4-8
C Bracket — third place for Bonderer & Smith — CHS bye first round; CHS beat Richmond 8-3; CHS lost to Staley 4-8; CHS beat RayPec 8-2
Team Results:
1st place — Staley top JV — 24 points
2nd place — Chillicothe JV — 15.5 points
3rd place — Staley middle JV — 14.5 points
4th place — St. Michael’s JV — 13 points
5th place — Savannah JV — 11.5 points
6th place — Ruskin JV & Maryville JV — 10 points
8th place — Blue Springs JV — 8.5 points
9th place — RayPec JV — 5 points
10th place — Richmond JV — 4 points
11th place — Oak Park JV — 2 points
12th place — East KC JV — No Show
