Thursday evening, the CHS girls’ tennis team hosted a small crew of players from Trenton. The stomach flu hit the Lady Bulldogs this week, causing them to only field 7 players at the CHS dual. All the varsity Lady Hornets started off really strong in doubles. The #1 pair of Lexy Smith and Lydia Bonderer dominated on court 1. In fact, during one of the opening points, Chillicothe hit a killer net volley, and the Trenton opponents were heard saying, “Wow! That was beautiful. I don’t even know where that went. That was so good!” The rest of the match continued in that manner with Smith and Bonderer winning quickly. On court 2 beside them, senior pair Summer Gatson and Rian Mathews played a bit longer but eventually won by a commanding score as well. On court 3, senior Trixie Leppin played tough, strong tennis, but her knee injury flared up again mid-match during a tie score. Her partner, junior Anya Moore, stepped up big time for the pair by covering 80% of the court for the rest of the match while Leppin focused on her corner and delivering strong serves that won lots of points. The combination of Moore’s running and Leppin’s consistent serves proved successful in the come-from-behind win.
In Singles, Smith, Bonderer, Gatson, and Moore all soared through their matches winning quickly and easily. Coach Chambers was glad to see everyone playing top tier tennis as they head into their final week of conference play next week. Gatson had a tougher match in her #3 singles match that was very evenly back-and-forth. Gatson’s experience and mental toughness proved the winning combo to eventually battle to a close win. Finally, on the #5 singles court, freshman Isabel Nagel had to substitute for the injured Leppin. That proved to be another neck-and-neck match, but Nagel adjusted well to the lob hits she was receiving and finally put together back-to-back games to end the match. The coaches were proud to see how adaptable and flexible everyone was, which made it possible for the team to sweep Trenton.
Results were as follows:
#1 Doubles — Smith & Bonderer won 8-1 over Katy Simpson & Kylee Corwin
#2 Doubles — Gatson & Mathews won 8-3 over Addison Wehar & Emma Lowrey
#3 Doubles — Leppin & Moore won 8-6 over Kennedy Cross & Harley Parkhurst
#1 Singles — Smith won 8-2 over Simpson
#2 Singles — Bonderer won 8-0 over Corwin
#3 Singles — Gatson won 9-7 over Wehar
#4 Singles — Mathews won 8-1 over Lowrey
#5 Singles — Nagel won 8-6 over Cross
#6 Singles — Moore won 8-1 over Parkhurst
JV Results were as follows:
Helena England won 6-0 over Dixie Warren
Leighton Kelly won 6-0 over Warren