Another banner will be added to the growing collection on the south wall of the Trenton High School gymnasium, as the Lady Bulldog tennis team pulled out a 5-4 victory at the Danner Park courts in Chillicothe on Wednesday afternoon, winning the Class 1, District 16 title over the top-seeded rival Lady Hornets, and earning home court advantage for sectional, and potential quarterfinal action on Saturday, October 7th.
While the final result was as tight as possible, individual matches were won in fairly convincing fashion, with the Lady Hornets and Lady Bulldogs splitting six singles matches, all in straight set fashion, while in doubles, Trenton won 2 of 3 matches, the critical margin in the district final triumph.
Trenton clinched the district title on the back of Maddie Searcy, who played Chillicothe’s Macy Cavanah in the #4 singles match. With the teams tied at 4, Searcy and Cavanah battled to a 6-6 tie in the second set, after the Trenton player had won the first set 6-2. Searcy controlled the tiebreak, winning 7-2, and preventing the Lady Hornets from forcing a winner-take-all third set.
On Tuesday night, it had been Lauren Dolan who advanced Trenton in the district final, winning a hard-fought final match in three sets over Maryville. On Wednesday night, whether it be by fatigue to level of competition, Dolan struggled in singles, falling to Hannah Cypert of the Lady Hornets 6-1, 6-love. Chillicothe’s #1 singles player Gracy Reeter rolled to a 6-2, 6-1 win over Claire Utley, while Hunter Keithley of Chillicothe, at #3 singles, was a 6-love, 6-1 winner over Samantha Mihalovich.
While Trenton’s strength against Maryville in the semifinals came from the middle of the singles draw, in the district final, it was the #4 through #6 entries dominating for the newly-crowned district champs. At #5 singles, Emma Gilham swept Lauren Gregory 6-love, 6-3, while at #6 singles, Elle Neal of the Lady Bulldogs won a hotly contested match with Hannah Zimmerman, taking a 7-5, 6-4 decision.
In doubles play, Chillicothe’s #1 entry of Cypert and Keithley were able to grind out a 9-7 win over Utley and Dolan, but Trenton took the other two matches, as Mihalovich and Searcy downed Reeter and Cavanah 8-2, while Gilham and Neal were an 8-5 victor over Gregory and Zimmerman.
As a result of their district championship, Trenton High School will host a pair of Class 1 sectional tennis matches, and a state quarterfinal, all on Saturday, October 7th.
The Lady Bulldogs, in the state sectionals, will take a 13-2 record into a duel with the 13-3 Marshall Lady Owls. Meanwhile, the 12-2 Lady Raiders of Pembroke Hill will battle 15-2 St. Pius X of Kansas City in the other sectional. The two survivors will advance to the Class 1 state quarterfinal at the Trenton High School tennis courts. The four teams playing at Trenton will represent the champions of Districts 13, 14, 15, and 16.
