McPHERSON, Kan. – For the second time this season, the McPherson girls tennis team hosted a tournament and came out on top in the standings with their McPherson Red team.
Competing with two teams and some extra players again, the Red squad took first for the Bullpups with 90 points ahead of second place Eisenhower with 72. McPherson White finished in sixth as a team.
The doubles team of Quinn Liebl and Avery Unruh was nearly unstoppable on the day as they went 4-0 and took first place. They lost just one game the entire day, taking 32 of the 33 games played at 97%. They met their teammates Dragon Rodriguez and Lleyton Kuhn in the championship match, winning 8-0. Rodriguez and Kuhn finished 3-1 in second place. Coach Tyler Brown said: “We were anchored once again by our #1 doubles team and what they did today was pretty incredible.”
In singles, Mayson Wiens went 3-1 and took third place and McKenna Paul was also 3-1, finishing in fifth place. For McPherson White, Audra Sandbo was 3-1 in 9th place in singles. Ava Miller went 2-2 and finished in 7th. Emily Reno and Sadie Krug were 2-2 in doubles in 10th Place and Anne-Marie Holmes and Brenna Sullivan finished 2-1 in doubles. Gwen Prieb and Hatti Krug also competed with Prieb going 3-2 and Krug 1-5.
Brown mentioned how taxing the tournament can be for the players and coaches with so many players on the court and also hosting all of the other teams, which takes away from coaching time. “Days like today show why what we do in practice matters so much. We had 14 girls competing at two different sites and girls playing on as many as six of the eight courts at the same time,” said Brown. “In those situations, the girls have to trust their preparation, remember the things we’ve talked about and go compete.”
The McPherson varsity team has taken first place at all six of the events they’ve competed in so far this season. They will likely see their toughest competition of the season at the Wichita Collegiate Tournament of Champions this Saturday with teams from every classification competing. Play starts at 8:00 at the Andover, Collegiate and Kapuan-Mt. Carmel tennis courts.
