TIgers Extend Girls Tennis Sectional Title Streak To 19
TIgers Extend Girls Tennis Sectional Title Streak To 19
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Mark Howe-
TIgers Extend Girls Tennis Sectional Title Streak To 19There seems to be certain things that can be relied on in life. The sun rises in the east, sets in the west, and at the end of the day Friday, Warsaw won another IHSAA girls tennis sectional title.
Friday’s 5-0 win over Columbia City gave the Tigers their 19th straight sectional crown, and 29th overall.
Tiger head coach Rick Orban said while there’s pressure in working to maintain such success, it works both ways. Pressure can work on opponents trying to stop such a streak.
“There is a certain amount of pressure. But yet at the same time we have enough confidence, and Jan (assistant coach and wife of the head coach) and I look at each other and say ‘we need to spot this,’ or ‘we need to do that.’ We believe in each other as coaches, and we know how to pick out our opponents weaknesses and tendencies,” Orban said.
“So it becomes a sort of comfort zone, where we can tell the girls something and they really believe it. This is No. 19; for someone to beat us, they have to come in to our place and beat us after we’ve won 19 in a row??I wouldn’t want to have to coach against that team.
“There’s a lot of pressure on the other teams coming into the tournament. It works both ways; we have pressure and they have pressure. The difference is we always have players who’ve been successful under that pressure, and so we’ve come out with the win.”
Of the ten sets played, the Tigers dropped more than one game in just one set against the Eagles. Alyssa Zellers won 6-0, 6-1 at No. 1 singles, and Taylor Shoaf won 6-4, 6-1 at No. 2. Rachel Boyle blanked her opponent at No. 3 singles, as did Maddie Ray and Amy Herendeen at No. 2 doubles. Raegan?Merchant and Rachel Yeager won 6-1, 6-1 at No. 1 doubles.
While the season hasn’t been as stellar as in the recent past for the Tigers, Orban said he was confident all along that, despite the naysayers, the sectional title streak would continue.
“This one was special because there were a lot of people that thought maybe this would be the one we didn’t win. The girls heard it throughout the season, but personally, we never believed it. But at some point you have to prove somebody wrong,” he said.
“And that’s what it came down to. So it’s a little extra sweet when it’s maybe a little in jeopardy, at least in rumors, and it was sweet to get No. 19.”
The length of the streak was put into focus by Friday doubling as a special day for a pair of players.
“It really got put in perspective today. The Ray twins, Maddie and Izzy, (Friday) was their 19th birthday,” Orban said. “And Rachel Boyle turns 19 on Sunday. All three of them kind of looked and said ‘wow! We were being born when we won the first one.’ It showed them it’s a long streak, and it put it in perspective for everybody, including us (coaches).”
Warsaw moves on to the Culver Academies Regional on Tuesday, where they will take on the winner of the sectional played there. Winners of sectionals in Bremen and Peru will face off in the other regional semifinal, and the championship match will be Wednesday.
