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Lady Hornets Tennis
Chillicothe 8, Moberly 1
Oct 8 2025
<Schedule>
Story by Coach
Chambers
Beginning with last season, Coach Chambers added the Moberly Lady
Spartans to the CHS girls' tennis schedule to purposefully play a
strong, well-hitting team in the gap week before districts. This
Wednesday, Moberly visited Danner Park for the second year of that
partnership. Both coaches really appreciate facing a non-district,
non-conference opponent in a high-quality match just before the
post-season, and this year was no different. In the inaugural
meeting, Moberly took the team win, but this year, Chillicothe
dominated on varsity all night long. The first couple of games in
all the doubles matches looked close, but after game three on each
court, the Lady Hornets broke away to sweep the doubles competition
in resounding fashion. Coach Chambers was thrilled to see such
confident play from her athletes against such good opponent hitters.
The singles matches proved a bit closer in score, including one
loss, but CHS proved incredibly accurate all night with their line
and corner shots. The top three singles players and the new varsity
freshman all won quickly and easily as they are all peaking at just
the right time in the season. Anya Moore was battling a tough
illness, fought hard for a strong doubles win, but had nothing left
in the tank for singles. But the highlight of the night came from
the final court to finish, well after everyone else, when senior #4
player Rian Mathews made the comeback of the season! She was down
4-7 in her singles match-up but dug deep with very evenly matched,
long rallies to string together three games in a row, bringing the
score to 7-7. Then, she dropped a game, making it 7-8. In the final
game, the players went to duece four times before Mathews finally
squeaked out that advantage to tie it up at 8-8. The match was
running so late at that point, the court lights even had to be
turned on. Mathews moved into the tiebreak but fell behind
instantly. The winning points alternated between each player, every
single point, so Mathews was always behind by one point or tied.
Finally, when the two netters reached 5-5 in the tiebreak score,
Mathews found a last burst of energy to incredibly take the last two
points in a row and win the match. What a beautiful finish for a
committed senior during her last regular-season match on home court.
Results were as follows:
#1 Doubles -- Lexy Smith and Lydia Bonderer won 8-2 over Snodgrass &
L. Shannon
#2 Doubles -- Summer Gatson and Rian Mathews won 8-4 over Owen &
Adam
#3 Doubles -- Anya Moore & Isabel Nagel won 8-2 over Mudd & I.
Shannon
#1 Singles -- Smith won 8-3 over Snodgrass
#2 Singles -- Bonderer won 8-3 over L. Shannon
#3 Singles -- Gatson won 8-4 over Owen
#4 Singles -- Mathews won 8-8 (tiebreak 7-5) over Adam
#5 Singles -- Moore lost 5-8 to Mudd
#6 Singles -- Nagel won 8-3 over I. Shannon |
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