Story by
Coach Ed Douglas
The Lady Hornets played very well in their
Invitational Individual Tournament Wednesday in Chillicothe.
The tournament was a originally scheduled to have four teams,
Chillicothe, Trenton, Battle from Columbia and Carrolton. But
Carrolton for some unknown reason decided not to come even
after signing a contract. “I was disappointed they choose not
to come. At the last minute that really plays havoc with your
plans for a tournament. I wanted to have an 8 person singles
bracket and an 8 team doubles bracket so we put a few of our
JV players in to take Carrolton’s place which worked out ok.”
Battle, a large class school from Columbia with 1600
students has two really top notch players. They were good last
year and played all summer in tournaments and were even better
this year. In the singles tournament we used a little
different format. When Sydnie and Ali (Syd beat Caitlin
Fechtig Chillicothe 10-0 and Ali beat Hannah Famer from
Trenton 10-0 in the first round) and their two reached the
semis after all four had first round wins we had decided to
let our two girls play each of their two girls. Since they
play each other all the time and so do Sydnie and Ali we
decided it would be better to give them all different
opponents.
Sydnie beat Gilliam Schulte 10-8 in a very good semi
final match and Ali beat Clara Baldwin 10-5 in another really
good match. Then in Sydnie beat Baldwin 10-1 in the next round
and Ali beat Schulte 10-3.
“I think after losing their first match the Columbia
girls did not quite have enough for the second match and Ali
and Sydnie hit their stride and it was all over. But these
were very good players and good wins for our top two. So
Sydnie and Ali both won 1st place singles in our tournament.
In the doubles, Jozie Reeter and Kelly Westphal
were the 3rd seed behind Battle’s previously undefeated team
of Natallie Tiffany and Alli Bond and Trenton’s #1 team. Jozie
and Kelly won their first match over Emily Adams and Arriana
Palmer of Battle 10-4. In the semis they defeated the Trenton
team of Alvynne Villacampa and Claire Utley 10-5. In the
finals Reeter and Westphal defeated the Battle no 1 seed 10-4.
“Jozie and Kelly played very well the whole
tournament. I would have thought the other team might be
slightly better but our team made it look easy.”
Our second team of Chelsea Long and Renee Downing also
won two matches to finish 5th in the tournament. They lost in
the first round to the number 1 seed 4-10 in a closer match
than the score indicated. They won their consolation matches
over Julia Minnis and Kiara Botts from Chillicothe 8-4 and
then beat Adams and Palmer from Battle 8-1.
“I thought they played very well too. Julia Minnis and
Kiara Botts helped fill in the doubles and played three good
matches. Madison Gipe and Caitlin Fechtig filled in on the
singles and also played very respectably.
“Overall, I was very pleased with how our entire team
played. We were disappointed after the Marshall match that we
didn’t play our best in that close lose. But today we looked
like a different team. Everyone really stepped up their game.
Maybe a loss was a good motivational event for us because the
girls, at least for today responded to the loss with a much
more intense level of play.”
"We had 10 girls that got a lot of playing and very
good competition today that will make us better the rest of
the season. And we responded with a really good performance.
Exactly what the doctor ordered”
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