Marian Caps Run by Rattling Off Winners
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
June 4, 2016
HOLLY – The first four championship matches Saturday at the Lower Peninsula Division 2 Girls Tennis Finals ended with a Bloomfield Hills Marian victory – and all within about 5 minutes of one another.
“It was just like, you didn’t know what to do,” said McKenna Landis, who joined teammate Regan Patterson to win the No. 1 doubles title for the Mustangs. “They’re smiling, you’re smiling, you’re crying, everyone’s happy, so let’s just hug. It was just crazy.”
The four flight champions had more than their individual triumphs to celebrate, as they had also put an exclamation point on Marian’s first team MHSAA title since 2013. The Mustangs finished with 32 points, nine ahead of East Grand Rapids and Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern, who tied for second with 23. Birmingham Seaholm was fourth with 22, and Okemos rounded out the top five with 21.
“It’s a great feeling,” Marian coach Lincoln Wirgau said. “These girls, they work so hard, and the season is so short from March to right now. They put in so much time and effort into a sport that’s not covered enough. They’re out here in 90-degree heat right now, playing two out of three sets, two matches, three matches a day; it’s wonderful to see their work pay off.”
Marian had the team title clinched before the finals started, but none of the players knew that. They certainly played as though there was a lot more still at stake, as four of the team’s five finalists walked away victorious.
Landis and Patterson were joined by the No. 2 doubles team of Melanie Roma and Shannon Flynn, the No. 4 doubles team of Christina Serra and Sophie Groves, and No. 4 singles player Sophie Balardo as champions in their flights.
“That’s a great rush,” Wirgau said. “A lot of them are seniors, and a lot of them have been working for this since their freshman year, so it’s great for those girls. For those seniors to go off winning their last match, and to do it next, next, next, next – that was something special right there.
“They play for each other. They just play for each other. I don’t have any five-star, blue chip USTA players. They come and they work for each other, and it’s a team game, and they know that’s the first overall goal is that team one.”
Landis and Patterson were first, finishing off a 6-4, 6-4 win against rivals Caity Buechner and Meaghan Flynn of Seaholm.
“We still wanted to fight for the individual state championship,” Patterson said. “We didn’t want to just think, ‘OK, the team has it, we can just do whatever.’ We wanted it for ourselves, too. And the team did, too.”
Before they could finish their congratulatory hugs, Balardo had finished off her 6-1, 6-2 win against Claire Costa of East Grand Rapids. Balardo hadn’t stepped off the court before Serra and Groves finished their 6-1, 6-3 win against East Grand Rapids’ team of Audrey Devries and Kate Mackeigen. That happened at essentially the same time Roma and Flynn finished their 6-3, 6-1 win against Seaholm’s team of Sam Lareau and Emily McDermott.
“Over half of our team is seniors,” Balardo said. “So we all wanted to go out with a lot of will power and do this.”
While Marian wrapped up its title early, the No. 1 singles final went the distance, just as the first two matches between Okemos’ Alisa Sabotic and Mason’s Olivia Hanover have this season. And just like the first matches did, this one ended with Sabotic coming out victorious.
Sabotic, a sophomore, rallied for a 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 victory, capping her first year of high school tennis with an MHSAA title.
“I knew I just had to be prepared for anything,” Sabotic said. “In the last two matches, I had won the first set, but in this one, she won the first set, so that kind of threw me off a little bit. But you just have to be prepared, have to hydrate and eat a lot, because I knew that I was going to need a lot of energy.”
Sabotic responded well to the first-set loss, dominating the second set and jumping out to a 3-0 lead in the third. But Hanover didn’t relent, tying the match at 3-3, and earning a break of Sabotic’s serve after falling behind 5-3. Sabotic was able to finish the match off, however, with a break of her own.
“I was like hyperventilating for a second,” Sabotic said with a laugh. “I kind of told myself, ‘It’s all or nothing. Just play your game, go for the ball, and whatever happens, it’s meant to be.’”
Sabotic’s teammate, Monika Francsics, gave Okemos a sweep of the top two flights, as she defeated Marian’s Breann Lunghamer 6-3, 6-2 for the No. 2 singles title.
Felicia Zhang of Forest Hills Northern rallied to win the No. 3 singles title 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 against Okemos’ Sema Colak.
At No. 3 doubles, Forest Hills Northern’s team of Salonee Marwaha and Claire Tatman fought off a tough opponent and the home crowd with a 6-4, 7-6 (5) win against Holly’s Megan Lesperance and Nicole Johnson.
PHOTOS: (Top) Bloomfield Hills Marian's Regan Patterson (right) and McKenna Landis celebrate their doubles championship during Saturday's Lower Peninsula Division 2 Finals. (Middle) Okemos' Alisa Sabotic returns a shot on the way to winning the No. 1 singles title. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Greenhills Girls Clinch 1st Repeat Team Championship in Semifinals
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
June 3, 2023
KALAMAZOO — Ann Arbor Greenhills made school history this weekend and did so with a “secret weapon,” according to coach Mark Randolph.
The Gryphons ran away with the team title at the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 4 Girls Tennis Tournament on Saturday at Kalamazoo College’s Stowe Stadium.
Greenhills amassed 36 points to outdistance the field and win back-to-back state titles, a first in school history for the girls team.
Ann Arbor Father Gabriel Richard finished second with 20 points, followed by Bloomfield Hills Academy of the Sacred Heart with 18 and Traverse City St. Francis with 16.
Two Grand Rapids teams, West Catholic and Catholic Central, tied for fifth with 15 points each.
“I was saying to anyone who would listen, I think we were here five years ago and we had one singles qualifier who lost 6-2, 6-2, in the first round,” Randolph said.
“We’ve sort of been off the stage. Because the boys have been strong, people assume it’s just been the same (with the girls). We’ve had to build.”
The building started in the middle school, where the “secret weapon” comes into play.
Five years ago, the coach’s wife, Becky Randolph, joined the English faculty at the school.
“I asked her to take over the middle school team,” the coach said. “While she doesn’t know anything about tennis, she knows an awful lot about young women and program building.
“She put it in these kids’ heads that if they stayed, they would get a great education but also be the start of a dynasty, she called it. So she sold them on the start of a dynasty.”
Things bode well for the future with the Gryphons losing just one senior, Manassa Gollapalli, to graduation.
The second-seeded senior defeated top-seeded senior Audrey Lee, of St. Francis, 6-3, 6-2, in the No. 4 singles final.
Gollapalli’s 6-1, 6-2, semifinal win over sixth seed Laura Williams, from Father Gabriel Richard, was actually the point that clinched the title for her team.
“It’s my last match of my high school season, so I was just trying to enjoy it,” Gollapalli said. But even if she had lost the flight final, “The team won so I can celebrate with my team no matter what happens.”
Finishing second, Father Gabriel Richard also loses just one senior and has an eye on closing the gap with its in-city rival.
The Irish started the season unranked, but climbed to third in the polls heading into the tournament.
Last year, they finished 13th at the Finals.
“Going from 13th to second is an incredible jump,” coach Jim Sayed said. “I have to acknowledge our senior captain Vivian (Heegan) and our junior captains Deena (Farjo) and Laura (Williams) for all their hard work this year for guiding the young players and showing them the way. We’ve done an incredible job all season long thanks to them.”
The tournament was the third time the Irish and Greenhills faced off this season.
“Congratulations to Greenhills,” Sayed said. “They’re an incredible team. We gave it our best shot against them. We had a lot of good matches, and the girls fought hard.”
Knowing the two teams will be back on the courts against each other next season, Sayed added: “That Greenhills team is very talented, returning a lot of players and we’ll have to put in a lot of hard work in the offseason to catch them. But I think our girls are up for that challenge.”
Greenhills sophomore Maddie Morgan, who lost in the semifinals at No. 1 singles last year as the third seed, lived up to her top billing at No. 1 singles this year with a 6-4, 6-3, win over freshman Jenny Florea, the second seed from Father Gabriel Richard.
This was the fourth time the two have played this season, with the previous three going three sets each.
“It was crazy,” Morgan said. “I won the first two and she won at Regionals. It’s kind of a rivalry.
“I was kind of thinking this one could (go three sets) too, but all the previous matches, I won the first set then lost the second so this time I knew I had to grind in the second set and try to get it out.”
Florea said playing in her first MHSAA Tournament was a “little nerve-wracking as a freshman, but I tried my best. I did what I needed to. It was a tough loss.
“I was hoping I could end it in two, but it didn’t happen. I made more mistakes and she put more balls in play. She had a tough mindset.”
Sophomore Shangyang Xia, the top seed from Greenhills, defeated Heegan, the second seed from Father Gabriel Richard, 6-3, 6-2, at No. 2 singles.
Although she defeated Heegan twice this season, Xia said she did not take anything for granted.
“Everybody improves, and she’s a really well-rounded athlete,” Xia said. “It was definitely hard to play her, but I just tried to be myself and I came through.”
As for winning the team title in the semifinals, “It was a weight lifting off our shoulders when we heard that,” she said.
Heegan said cheerleading in the fall and playing basketball in the winter helps her tennis.
“It almost seems like having a break between each tennis season helps me, weirdly enough,” she said.
Looking back on her four years of varsity tennis, “You don’t really get a setting of high school tennis anywhere else,” she said. “It’s very friendly between teams and you kind of root for teams you know at big tournaments. It’s cool in that way. It’s a fun sport, a social sport.”
A pair of freshmen faced off at No. 3 singles, with Greenhills top seed Danica Rakic-Dennis defeating Father Gabriel Richard’s second seed Kenna Trost, 6-1, 6-1.
Playing in her first MHSAA Tournament, “It’s really fun,” Rakic-Dennis said. “It’s a new experience playing with a team. It’s a great stadium, and I’m happy to be here.”
Two of the closest finals matches were in doubles.
At No. 1, Academy of the Sacred Heart’s third seeds Jade Horcoff and Kayla Nafso defeated Greenhills top seeds Sophie Chen and Lauren Ye 7-5, 7-6(2). At No. 3, Academy of the Sacred Heart’s top seeds Alana Hindo and Presley Krywko defeated second seeds Meera Pandey and Meera Tewari, from Greenhills, 6-2, 7-6(3).
In the other two doubles finals, Academy of the Sacred Heart’s top seeds Maggie Pulte and Lulu George defeated Wixom St. Catherine’s third seeds, Katie Grewe and Julia Ivezaj, 6-2, 6-1, at No. 2, while Greenhills’ second seeds Arya Prabhakar and Aoife Tang defeated Grand Rapids Catholic Central’s fourth seeds, Mary Irwin and Arabella Sassano, 6-2, 6-4, at No. 4.
PHOTOS by High School Sports Scene.