On a very windy, cold Tuesday night, the Chillicothe girls tennis team traveled to Excelsior Springs High School to play in the team’s district semifinal matchup. The night ran in a typical 6-3 setup with three doubles matches first followed by six singles matches. As in all postseason play, whenever a team earns a majority of the wins, the match is called instantly without letting the remaining matches finish. Chillicothe knew they were up for a hard fight in #1 doubles as Excelsior’s top pair had qualified for individual state just days earlier. Seniors Micah Crowe and Keonnia Morgan gave the match their all, but it was simply not enough to overcome the powerful opponents. The same was true in the #2 doubles match where Jasmine McLean and Lydia Bonderer fought hard but lost quickly to an Excelsior pair with wickedly strong spin serves. However, Summer Gatson and Lexy Smith were able to really connect as first-time partners and storm through their set for Chillicothe’s first team win of the night. The lady hornets moved into singles play down 1-2 as a team.
All six singles matches began at the same time with all girls playing best two out of three sets. After about 45 minutes of grit and determination, seniors Sarah George and Bianca Clark came up short on their courts, moving the team score to 1-4, with three other teammates down a set on their courts. The night looked almost over, but then the remaining courts all mounted a valiant comeback effort. While those remaining seniors fought back from their deficits, sophomore Jasmine McLean finished up a tight battle to secure another Chillicothe win, making the team score 2-4. On the court next to her, Keeley Shira was one game away from losing her match when she won four games in a row to take her match to a second set tiebreak. She squeaked out a set tiebreak win, which then forced her match into a third set. In Missouri girls tennis, third sets are never played; instead, athletes must instantly play a 10-point championship tiebreak that counts as the third set. As Shira battled through her second consecutive, intense tiebreak, #1 singles player Crowe was dominating her second set and just one game away from tying her opponent. However, on the other remaining court, Morgan was in a very tight battle fighting desperately to extend the night for her and her teammates, but she came up just short before Shira or Crowe could finish. This caused the match to be called at an overall score of 2-5, but all three coaches present from both teams said it might have been a 4-5 type of night if they could have finished all matches. While the score may not look close, the fight and comebacks exemplified by most of the team really spoke volumes on Tuesday night’s courts.
The lady hornets finished their season 8-11 as a team. The results for Tuesday’s matches were as follows:
#1 Doubles Crowe & Morgan lost to Shelby Stodden & Malaya Tedesco 4-8
#2 Doubles McLean and Bonderer lost to Laney Smith & Megan Riegel 4-8
#3 Doubles Gatson and Smith beat Ananya Carrel & Lily Long 8-2
#1 Singles Crowe & Stodden went unifinished
#2 Singles Morgan lost to Tedesco 2-6, 4-6
#3 Singles Clark lost to Smith 2-6, 2-6
#4 Singles Shira & Riegel went unfinished
#5 Singles McLean beat Carrel 6-2, 6-3
#6 Singles George lost to Long 2-6, 4-6
