Cancellation proves beneficial for New Richmond girls tennis team

• Shannon Peper

Shannon Peper has solidified a spot in the two doubles pairing for the Tigers this season.

Talk about it

Every year the New Richmond girls tennis team plans one overnight road trip as a team building event.

That event was supposed to take place on Saturday in Cedarburg, in the Milwaukee area. Last Thursday, Tiger coach Denise Devereux was contacted by the Cedarburg coach that the tournament was cancelled.

All was not lost. Through discussions with area coaches, Devereux found there was an opening in a tournament in Menomonie on Saturday. The Tigers were able to hold their overnight activity in Eau Claire before playing in the Menomonie tournament.

The Tigers were defeated in all three matches on Saturday, but they performed well against three strong opponents.

“I ended up being glad Cedarburg cancelled,” Devereux said. “This tournament gave us some very good matches.”

The Tigers faced Chippewa Falls, Wausau West and Hudson in the tournament. The Tigers lost to Chippewa Falls 4-3, the same result as when they met a week earlier. Heather Halvorsen scored the only win in singles for the Tigers, winning the four singles match 6-4, 7-6. The Tigers took two doubles matches. Carley Brotzler and Christian Weaver won the three doubles match 6-3, 6-1.

The most competitive match of the round was at one doubles, where Amy Kukacka and Mattie Kidder won in three sets. They took the third set tie-breaker 10-8.

“They finally played like I know they’re capable,” Devereux said of her one doubles team. “And they played that way all weekend.”

In the second round the Tigers played a strong Wausau West team. West scored a 5-2 victory. Kukacka and Kidder came through with another win, this time by a 6-3, 6-2 score.

Maggie Earley scored a 6-4, 6-3 win in the three singles match against Wausau. Earley turned around and earned the only win for the Tigers in their 6-1 loss against Hudson in the final round. The Tigers had beaten Hudson early in the season, but the Raiders were missing two of their top players that day.

Earley came back from losing her first set to take the final two sets 6-2, 10-7 to get her win at three singles.

The 6-1 score isn’t indicative of how the Tigers played against Hudson. The coaches were quite happy with the long points and challenging shots the Tigers were making in the match.

Conference opener

After sweeping Durand 7-0, the Tigers got more of a battle than they were expecting when they hosted Durand last Tuesday. Durand added two players to its lineup for this match and the Tigers were without two starters. That made a vast difference, as the Tigers had their hands full in a 4-3 win.

The Tigers were without Ali Graff and Carley Brotzler for this match. Graff had injured her rotator cuff while serving in practice that morning and Brotzler was ill. Their spots in the lineup were taken by Emma Meisner and Christian Weaver, who combined for a 6-2, 6-3 win at three doubles.

That was one of three wins for the Tigers in doubles competition. Where Durand improved significantly was on the singles side. Durand took three of the four singles matches. Tiger junior Kaycie Anderson was able to get a win at one singles for the Tigers.

The Tigers are now deep into their Middle Border Conference schedule. They will play at home on Thursday against Mondovi. They will be at home again next Tuesday, facing Ellsworth.

Tags: sports, tigers, tennis, prep