As the number three seed in MSHSAA Class 1, District 8 competition, the CHS girls’ tennis team had to travel to Maryville (#2 seed) on Tuesday afternoon to play the team dual for post-season progression. The two teams just played exactly two weeks ago when Maryville won decisively, 6-3, over Chillicothe, so the Lady Hornets entered this week as the clear underdog. However, the team found just the right match flips on Tuesday night to topple the Spoofhounds!
It started in doubles when #1 pair Lexy Smith and Lydia Bonderer once again knocked off Maryville’s top pair of Grow & Quinlin (both of whom qualified for State in singles) after initially falling behind to them. Next door to them, #2 pair Summer Gatson & Rian Mathews played the same Maryville pair for the fifth time in only a month, losing again rather quickly. However, up-and-coming pair Anya Moore and Isabel Nagel found one of the crucial matches to flip in #3 doubles by dominantly winning their match this time around. That set the team off into singles up 2-1 overall.
In post-season play, singles matches are best 2 out of 3 sets with an instant championship tiebreak in lieu of a third set. This creates incredibly long singles matches to finish the night. Gatson battled through the longest rallies all night but eventually fell in the #3 match, taking the team scores to 2-2. Then, #5 and #6 players Moore & Nagel both picked up first set wins only to fall behind in their second sets. Moore lost that second set quickly and had to take a thorough mental reset before starting the sudden championship tiebreak. Her mental and emotional toughness proved rock solid as she battled through that to finally win her match, moving the team score to 3-2. Simultaneously, Nagel fell behind by a game twice in her second set and also took a tough mental reset in order to squeak out the last few games and claim the second set and match, which is a tough ask of any new freshman player under the pressure of a critical post-season match. The team score was then 4-2 overall.
On the top courts, Smith and Bonderer were each playing incredible points against the two state qualifiers, but they continued coming up just short of game wins and were both down a set, making the score look likely tied at 4-4. That left senior Rian Mathews with the deciding match, and she sealed the deal before Smith or Bonderer could officially finish. Mathews started her first set down a game until Coach Chambers approached her at the fence and explained the team’s need for a win, concluding that Mathews’ continued consistency that she’d witnessed all season could be enough to flip the outcome. Mathews took the news in stride and instantly picked up two games in a row to reverse the lead, which eventually led to a first-set tiebreak that she dominantly won. Up one set, she stayed calm, steady, and consistent, as she has all season long, to chip away at the second set and eventually claim the singles win along with the team win! Coach Chambers was quoted as saying, “A district win and upset couldn’t happen to a move deserving player. Rian has silently been our winningest athlete of the entire varsity season, as she always reliably gets us points in doubles and singles. She is the kid who shows up all summer long every summer, putting in the extra hours for four straight years, and it all finally paid off for her tonight. What a moment to witness her teammates rush the court and celebrate her clutch victory.”
The team travels to Savannah on Wednesday to face the Lady Savage’s #1 seeded team in the District Championship. Results were as follows:
#1 Doubles — Smith & Bonderer won 8-4 over Grow & Quinlin
#2 Doubles — Gatson & Mathews lost 1-8 to Deering & Kain
#3 Doubles — Moore & Nagel won 8-5 Gallagher & Hennegin
#1 Singles — Smith was down 1-6, 4-3 to Grow but match was unfinished
#2 Singles — Bonderer was down 2-6, 0-5 to Quinlin but match was unfinished
#3 Singles — Gatson lost 2-6, 2-6 to Deering
#4 Singles — Mathews won 6-6 (tiebreak 7-4), 6-2 over Kain
#5 Singles — Moore won 6-3, 1-6, 10-6 over Gallagher
#6 Singles — Nagel won 6-2, 7-5 over Evans