For the first time in Coach Chambers and Pyrtle’s coaching tenure, the Lady Hornets have convincingly knocked off the Lady Owls of Marshall in their tennis dual Monday night. Marshall has been known to fill a strong, thriving tennis program for decades, and they typically prove just a bit too tough for CHS to overcome. Not this year. After a slow start on most of the doubles courts, the Lady Hornets really stepped up to compete at a higher level. When they realized that Marshall meant business at the net, CHS started placing the ball much more strategically and powered through to win all three doubles matches.
In Singles, the play was even closer. Every point on every court took at least 10 hits to complete. It is the most evenly matched CHS has been all season. The coaches were excited to see such great rounds of groundstrokes leading up to their critical conference match the next day. Not only was it fun to finally beat Marshall, but they provided the strongest warm-up possible before the Maryville match on Tuesday night, which determines conference standings and district seeding. The Lady Hornets battled through more deuce and ad points on Monday night alone than maybe the rest of the season combined. Eventually, they found four more singles win, finishing the night 7-2 as a team.
Highlights of the night included a slow start from Smith & Bonderer before barreling through the rest of doubles for a resounding win. Plus, Moore battled through dropping three consecutive games before resetting mentally and fighting for the win. Additionally, Gatson & Mathews also started slow in doubles before really turning on their beautiful cross court shots to win. Finally, Nagel battled through games that included 10 duece points in three different games to edge out her opponent while subbing for injured Trixie Leppin.
Results were as follows:
#1 Doubles Lexy Smith & Lydia Bonderer won 8-3 over Kennedy King & Kellin Fann
#2 Doubles Summer Gatson & Rian Mathews won 8-4 over Emmily Reith & Sofie Messing
#3 Doubles Anya Moore & Isabel Nagel won 8-2 over Heidi Jimenez Ruiz & Almary Benjamin
#1 Singles Smith lost 6-8 to King
#2 Singles Bonderer won 8-5 over Reith
#3 Singles Gatson lost 5-8 to Fann
#4 Singles Mathews won 8-4 over Messing
#5 Singles Moore won 8-6 over Jimenez Ruiz
#6 Singles Nagel won 8-6 over Benjamin
JV also had a highly successful night with some players winning tie breaks and others winning their first match of the season. Results were as follows:
England & Shafiq won 6-3 over Trelow & Carrillo
Kelly & Bagley lost 2-6 to Escarate & Rubio Miranda
Gabrielson & Albrecht won 6-6 (tiebreak 7-3) to Salmeron & Rubio
Fagan & Ford won 6-1 over Hoey & Bolling
Leifker & Peery lost 3-6 to Reyes & Aguilar Ramerez
Rempel lost 3-6 to O’Donnell
Helena England won a JV singles’ match
Leighton Kelly won a JV singles’ match
Mackenzie Bagley lost a JV singles’ match