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Lady Hornets Tennis
9/27/2023 MEC Tournament
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Story and Picture by Coach Chambers
Washburn & Garr Are MEC Champs
In front of teary-eyed parents and ecstatic coaches,
seniors Rylee Washburn and Isabella Garr dominantly conquered their
multi-year goal of becoming Midland Empire Conference Doubles
Champions this Wednesday afternoon in St. Joseph. Overall, the
entire Chillicothe girls' tennis team played a strong day of tennis,
especially the two doubles partnerships, but the icing on the cake
were Washburn and Garr's gold medals.
At the MEC championship tournament, there is no team
component. Girls only play in singles or doubles, typically playing
in the position they will play the following Saturday at Districts.
Washburn and Garr played Doubles as usual while Bianca Clark and
Keeley Shira played doubles as well. In Singles, Bryton BeVelle and
Micah Crowe both represented Chillicothe. To begin the day, BeVelle
and Crowe faced tough brackets as they typically play the #3 and #4
positions for Chillicothe but were facing many schools' #1 or #2
players in this showdown. Thankfully, both girls started the day off
with a solid win to advance to the Quarterfinals. However, both
girls then faced seeded opponents in that second round, where they
eventually lost and moved over to the consolation bracket. In those
battle-back rounds, Crowe first faced the eventual 5th place
medalist; in that match, Crowe played fantastic tennis but her
opponent still came out victorious. When BeVelle began consolation
play, she was able to grab another win over Maryville to move her
one step closer to the 5th place match. Yet, she fell just one match
short when she lost to Savannah next.
Clark and Shira proved to be a source of constant
surprises and excitement on the day. While some teams underestimated
them because they were Chillicothe's lower seeded doubles pair, they
quickly learned that Clark and Shira were out for blood. The two had
a terrible draw in the bracket facing off against the #1 seeded
doubles pair in the first match of the day, where they lost quickly.
However, slowly but surely, the partnership battled back match by
match to eventually earn their way all the way back to the 5th place
medal match. To get there, Clark and Shira had to win three straight
matches in a do-or-die format. And they did just that. In
Consolation, they first conquered a Cameron pair. Then, in quite the
upset, they beat the Savannah pair who had beaten them three other
times this season. Finally, they beat a Maryville pair. In the 5th
place medal match, they played Benton's #1 doubles team. Chillicothe
started up 3-0, even as the underdogs, but then Benton really
stepped up and powered through the rest of the match winning eight
of the next nine games, causing Chillicothe to lose that final match
4-8. Coach Chambers and Coach Pyrtle were beyond ecstatic for this
partnership as they ended up 6th out of 16 very tough MEC doubles
teams. They beat all seven other #2 pairs present and even three
schools' #1 pairs. The coaches cannot wait to see how this
partnership continues to blossom at districts and beyond.
In the end, though, the day truly belonged to Rylee and
Isabella, who are Chillicothe's first girls' tennis MEC Champions in
four years. The last pair to achieve this feat was Keithley and
Zimmerman in 2019. Washburn and Garr went 4-0 on the day, never even
dropping a set and never going to a tiebreak. They played dominant,
confident tennis. Coach Chambers said this is the best this
partnership has ever looked, and they are hitting their peak at just
the right time as we step into districts in just three days. First
up, this pair beat Maryville's #2 doubles quickly and decisively.
Next, they easily beat Benton's #1 pair who later went on to beat
Clark and Shira for 5th place. In the semi-finals, Rylee and Izzy
started slowly going down 0-3 in the first set to Savannah's #1 pair
(who they are 1-1 against this season). But after a clear mental
reset and new game plan with Coach Pyrtle at the fence during the
changeover, the girls turned it around and won six of the next seven
games to take the first set. In the second set, they much more
clearly dominated and won the match. Finally, the partnership faced
the tournament's #1 seed, St. Pius' #1 doubles pair, for the
championship match. While there were really good, long points with
impressive hitting from both sides, Washburn and Garr simply
commanded the court the entire championship match, winning both sets
quite clearly.
These six players will now compete in individual
districts on Saturday morning in Trenton in order to earn a trip to
Sectionals in the State competition. |
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