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Lady Hornets Tennis
Team District Final vs Savannah
Oct 15 2025
<Schedule>
Story by Coach
Chambers
CHS Girls' Tennis Falls to Savannah in
Tight Rematch to Finish District Runners-up
On Wednesday evening, the Lady Hornets of Chillicothe traveled to
Savannah for the tennis district championship team dual. Six weeks
ago, when the team last dualed, CHS lost 1-8, but as the team has
progressed tremendously, this week proved a much closer night. In
doubles, Chillicothe's #2 and #3 pairs lost fairly quickly, but the
#1 pair of Lexy Smith & Lydia Bonderer battled for twice as long,
eventually winning their court. This set the team up 1-2 overall,
headed into singles play.
Summer Gatson and Anya Moore both played long
rallies and lots of deuce games on courts #3 and #5, but they were
not able to tackle Savannah's extreme consistency. That moved the
team score to 1-4, almost ending the night, and making the score
look very lopsided. However, #2 Bonderer played the fastest, most
dominant singles' match of her entire season to keep the team in the
hunt. On the end court, playing under a very large and loud Savannah
crowd, freshman #6 Isabel Nagel won a quick first set but lost by
quite a bit in her second set with the momentum in Savannah's court
going into the championship tiebreak in leiu of a third set.
However, Nagel got really calm during her five-minute break and went
out to dominate the tiebreak, never getting down again. This moved
the team score back to a reasonable 3-4 overall. The last two
matches on court for the night were senior Rian Mathews at #3 and
sophomore Smith at #1. Neither matches were within reach by that
point, though, as both Chillicothe athletes were down a set and
losing in their second sets. Every game they played went to deuce,
but they were unable to close those games. Eventually, the #3 court
finished with a loss before the #1s could wrap-up, so with the score
at 3-5, the team dual was called in favor of Savannah. Coach
Chambers was quoted as saying, "If you've gotta lose, you want to
lose to the best while playing your best, and that's exactly what
our girls did tonight. To make it such a closer match than it was in
early September is a testament to our athlete's growth and grit."
The Savannah coach Kelly Jones was even overheard telling Coach
Chambers, "Your girls have gotten so much better compared to last
month," which is all a coach can ask of her athletes in post-season
play.
Results were as follows:
#1 Doubles -- Smith & Bonderer won 8-4 over Fischer & Steele
#2 Doubles -- Gatson & Mathews lost 0-8 to Alexander & Hare
#3 Doubles -- Moore & Nagel lost 1-8 to Jones & Forney
#1 Singles -- Smith was down 1-6, 0-5 to Fischer, but the match was
unfinished
#2 Singles -- Bonderer won 6-1, 6-0 over Alexander
#3 Singles -- Gatson lost 0-6, 1-6 to Hare
#4 Singles -- Mathews lost 1-6, 2-6 to Steele
#5 Singles -- Moore lost 1-6, 0-6 to Jones
#6 Singles -- Nagel won 6-2, 2-6, 10-4 to Bodenhausen |
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