(Story by Ed Douglas)
     The Lady Hornets had a phenomenal day at the 7 team MEC Individual Conference Championship Wednesday in St Joe.
     With two entries for each team in singles and doubles for a total of 14 entries in each event the Lady Hornets finished 1st and 2nd in Singles and 1st and 4th in doubles, a terrific day. " Sydnie Whiteside defeated teammate Ali Stephens in the Singles finals 6-0 6-2.
     Sydnie played exceptionally well in the finals. Since Ali had one the previous match up at our Invitational I'm sure Sydnie wanted to get back in the win column against her teammate." " I am very fortunate as a coach to have two such terrific players who make each other better by their on court competition. I would expect they will get another chance to play each other again in the District finals here in Chillicothe next Thursday,"
     In Doubles, Chelsie Long and Kelly Westphal won four matches to win 1st in the Doubles. This was not at all expected as our team was seated 3rd against several teams with their #1 and #2 players in doubles. Westphal and Long defeated the #1 seed from Lafayette in the finals 7-5 6-2. They were behind in this match 5-4 and came back and won. In their semifinal match they came back from down 5-1 in a tiebreaker and in their quarterfinal match they also came back from down 5-3 in a tiebreaker. This was a big victory for those girls and they won all the close matches today that showed their grit and determination. Our other doubles team of Jozie Reeter and Therese Taylor also played exceptionally well coming back in the first round after losing the first set 2-6 to the #4 seed from Cameron to win 2-6, 7-6 (7-4) 6-2. That was a very good comeback against a seeded team. The girls also played well in the next round winning a close match 6-4 6-3 against Benton before losing to the #1 seed In the semifinals 2-6 5-7.
     "It was a really good day for us. I had felt like we had lost some close matches in our previous only two loses (Hornet record 10-2 and 6-0 in Conference, but today we won probably 5 or 6 very close matches that could have gone the other way. Winning 1st and 2nd in singles and 1st and 4th in doubles against 7 total schools and 14 entries in each division is really good. I am very proud of our girls and how they played."
     Next up is the second round of Team District, Monday at 4 in Chillicothe against the winner of the #5 and #4 seeds to be played at noon, Cameroon and Maryville. If we win that match we will play in the finals Wednesday at 4 for the District Team Championship against the winner of Savannah and Trenton. Chillicothe is the #1 seed in the team District.