Class 1-A Girls Regional Tennis
May 20th, 2011 by Jim Field
Individual results from Red Oak (Shenandoah host site, rain moved it to Red Oak indoors/outdoors):
Singles — Championship Liz Metheny, Atlantic over Catie Faust, St. Albert 6-2, 6-3
Doubles — Championship Emily Pierson/Rachel Pierson, Red Oak over Beth Reiter/Teal Driscoll, Clarinda 6-1, 6-0
Champions and Runners-up advance to State Tournament at Byrnes Park, Waterloo June 2,3
Atlantic results —
Singles — 1st Round #2 Seed Liz Metheny (A) over Sara Madison, St. Albert 6-0, 6-1 Shelby Svoboda (A) lost to #1 Seed Ana Van Scoy, Glenwood, 5-2 (retired — injury default) 2nd Round Metheny over Marely Chavez, Glenwood 6-1, 6-0 Semifinal Metheny over #3 Seed Britt Walker, Red Oak 6-3, 2-6, 7-6(7-3 tiebreak) Championship Metheny over #4 Seed Catie Faust, St. Albert 6-3, 6-3
Doubles — 1st Round Morgan Allen/Carli Thornton (A) over Angela Phipps/Abbey Bakerink, Creston 6-2, 6-1 Tierney Kamies/Sarah Schreiner (A) over Joni Thomas/Julianne Johnson, St. Albert 6-2, 6-3 2nd Round Allen/Thornton (A) lost to #3 Seed Mackenzie Johnson/Sarina Mohrhardt, Shenandoah 7-5, 6-4 Kamies/Schreiner (A) lost to #4 Seed Tarynne Kinghorn/Ashton Matheny, Shenandoah 6-3, 6-2
Coach Shawn Petersen’s Comments —
Girls Individual Regionals is all about getting to State — the girls are not competing as a team at all — so there’s a lot of pressure since it’s a lose-and-you’re done format; In the Singles draw, Liz was voted the #2 seed over Walker, who’s an outstanding player. If it played out according to seed, they would meet in the semifinal to determine who went to the State Tournament, which is a very difficult feat to accomplish — only 96 tennis players across the state of Iowa make it to the State Tournament regardless of class — and unlike some other sports, the girls must perform extremely well to make it — there’s no switching of teammates at the State level. Liz breezed through her first two matches, although Chavez from Glenwood battled her tough — the final score was not indicative of how close the match was in Round 2. In the match to go to State, Liz had a very gritty and talented Britt Walker to get through, who would probably be the #1 player for any team in the conference not named Red Oak. Liz jumped out early and won some tough deuce games to take the first set; Walker righted the ship in Set #2 and played flawlessly in squaring the match at a set apiece, setting up a third set for all the marbles. Liz was up 2-0, 4-2, and 5-4, before Britt won two straight games, forcing Liz to win her serve to force a tiebreak. She did that, and then it was one tiebreak game to decide the match. Liz was down 3-1 before running off 6 consecutive points to win 7-3 and punch her ticket to State. The match was easily the best singles match I’ve seen in four years as coach — both players deserved to win, and it was hard to see either player lose. Normally, I think that’s an overused cliche in sports, but that sums it up pretty well. Two very talented, very game competitors battling hard for every point — there were no freebies for either player. To have a berth at State come down to a 3rd Set tiebreaker is about as good as it gets in high school tennis. The two young ladies were on the court for 2 1/2 hours — it was thrilling to watch. Following a short break, Liz then had to come back and play another match for the title, and she grinded out an excellent win over Faust. Catie knocked out the #1 seed in the other semifinal, and had to be considered the favorite going into the final, especially with all the energy Liz had to expend in the semi. But, as I’ve said before, no one hates losing more than Liz, and she found a way to win, as she usually does. Shelby got a terrible break — she was playing well against the top seeded Van Scoy when her foot grabbed the surface too much and her right ankle completely rolled; it swelled immediately and she had no chance of continuing. Shelby had a great career for Trojanns tennis — it was difficult to see her career end on an injury. In Doubles, Morgan and Carli defeated Creston, then in Rd. 2 played very well against the #1 and #2 players from Shenandoah — both sets were tight and could’ve gone either way. They definitely performed to the best of their abilities and have nothing to be ashamed of — it took Shen’s best to knock them out of the tournament. Sarah and Tierney beat a duo from St. Albert before falling to a quality team from Shenandoah as well. Shenandoah had the second best team in the conference this year in my opinion, and losing to Coach Daoust and his squad is nothing to hang their heads about, either. This meet marks the end of the careers of 5 outstanding seniors for Atlantic — they will be missed, certainly. They were all freshmen my first year as coach, and to see how far they’ve come as tennis players is very rewarding. I hope they enjoyed their careers as Trojann tennis players as much as I enjoyed coaching them.
Also:
Region 1 at Spencer
Singles
KJ Veldman (Spirit Lake/Okoboji) over Erin Olson (Estherville –LC) 6/4, 6/4
Doubles
Alli Gerkeing & Aubry Kolegraff (Spirit Lake/Okoboji) over Kristen Allesch & Rachel Ingram (Denison-Schleswig) 6/4, 6/1
Region 3 at Norwalk
Singles
Kristy Carr (Ballard) over Chelsy Petersen (Harlan) 6/0, 6/1