The Lady Tennis Hornets won their second straight 8 team tournament with a win at the Excelsior Springs 8 team tournament Wednesday. “This was a really good win for us” While I have been coaching the girls the last two years we have not won this tournament. Last year we finished second to Kearney and Platte County did not have their varsity at the tournament last year due to over scheduling. So Platte County had the first team here this year in addition to Kearney.
     As good as we were last year I have thought our team is better this year and we are really starting to prove that besting out second place finish at the 8 team Benton Savannah Tournament with a first place last week, playing Barstow the defending State Champs to a 5-4 match Tuesday and besting our second place finish at Excelsior with a first place finish this year.

     In this format the eight teams are divided into two pools of four. Your play two singles and three doubles so you use 8 players rather than 6. In each pool there is a round robin and then based on where you finish in the round robin you match up with the corresponding individual player or doubles team for a final round. The top finisher play for first, the second two play for third etc. The overall winner as a team is based on total matches won in the four rounds.
     We won 17 matches out of 20, just one ahead or Platte County that finished with 16. Kearney finished with 12 followed by Odessa with 8, Cameron with 5, Carrolton with 5, Richmond with 5 and Excelsior with 2.
     “We had about 4 or 5 matches that easily could have gone the other way that would have meant we didn’t win but the entire 8 person team contributed to the win.“ This was especially gratifying since our number 3 doubles team which we knew would have to win some matches had to substitute our number 9 player in for our number 7 player, Julia Minnis who sprained her ankle.
      “Maddy Gipe the fill in had not played a varsity match and so we were a little apprehensive as to how this would play out”

     In the pool all the Hornets played Excelsior, then Cameron and then Kearny before matching up against the various winners from the other pool. Sydnie Whiteside won the #1 singles individually with respective wins of 6-1, 6-0 , 6-1 and finally 6-0 against Richmond. Her third match against Kearney was a very good win although the score doesn’t show it. At #2 Ali Stephens dominated everybody too winning 6-0, 6-0, 6-0 and finally 6-1 against Platte County.
     Kelly Westphal and Jozie Reeter won the #1 doubles with wins of 7-5, 6-3, 6-3 and finally 6-2 against Odessa. “Kelly and Jozie got off to a slow start but steadily improved as the tournament advanced. Many of the teams put their best players in doubles and so I would say this was an upset to get first at #1 doubles.”

     Maddy Gipe and Kiara Botts won their first two matches 7-5 and 6-4 before losing 4-6 and 6-7 (1-7) in the finals to Odessa.
      “Maddy and Kiara started off slowly as had to be expected with Maddy’s first varsity match but they fought through adversity and won the first two matches. Last year we only got one win at this position and so these wins also made the difference of us winning or losing . Kiara and Maddy actually were very close to winning third in their division having a match point in that match. “But by then we knew we had won the tournament as a team and so their early wins were what was really important. Additionally by the end of the tournament they were playing 100% better than early on.

     ‘This was a real total team effort. Everyone contributed to the win which really makes it fun.”