Westwood Runs Title Streak to 5
October 2, 2013
By Craig Remsburg
Special to Second Half
ISHPEMING — His team has now won five straight MHSAA Upper Peninsula Division 2 championships. But coach Chris Jackson isn’t about to call his Ishpeming Westwood High School girls tennis program a dynasty.
“We just have good player participation,” he said after his Patriots totaled 14 points to beat runner-up Iron Mountain by one Wednesday. “This is the biggest ‘team’ victory out of all of them, though.”
West Iron County placed third with 10 points followed by Ishpeming (7), Ironwood (6), Munising (4) and Gwinn (1).
“I’m just drained,” Jackson said. “This was the most tense finals out of all of them.”
Westwood’s No. 3 doubles team of Lacey Pietro and Olivia Derocher, its No. 4 doubles tandem of Emily Carlson and Jamee Ferris, and Rachel Anderson at No. 4 singles all won titles.
Jackson said his No. 4 doubles unit, which rallied to knock off Hannah Hakamaki and Grace Hansen of Iron Mountain by a 3-6, 7-5, 6-2 count, was a key to the win.
“They were our last group on the court. If they win, we win by one point,” he said. “They were down 5-2 in the second set and won 7-5, In one stretch, they won 10 of 11 games.”
Anderson added a No. 4 singles crown to her resume after winning at No. 4 doubles last season.
“At first, I was shaky,” she said of her 6-3, 6-0 win over Jessie Prudhomme of West Iron. “But after a few games, I got into my rhythm.
“It was great to be a No. 4 doubles champ, but this one is better because I did it on my own.”
Jackson said his team’s victory came from other factors as well.
“Our No. 3 doubles are both seniors and got our finals started,” Jackson said. “It was our first finals win (of the day).
“Megan Chapman got into the semis and got us a point, and Caitlin Hewitt (at No. 2 doubles with Gabby Hebert) picked up points playing with a leg injury. Caitlin had been playing No. 1 singles until her injury three weeks ago. She was able to contribute at No. 2 doubles, and it’s a case of a senior sacrificing for the better of the team.”
Iron Mountain claimed wins at No. 1 singles with Katie Brule, No. 2 singles with Olivia Truscott and No. 2 doubles with twins Katie and Emily Bugni.
“It was a very hard match,” Brule said of her 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 win over Ironwood’s Katie Piispanen. “She hit the ball well, placed it well and made me run. But my overheads were good and so were my serves.
“I stayed consistent in the tiebreaker and didn’t get frustrated. I felt better about things after winning that.” she added, noting she won a U.P. title at No. 2 singles in 2012.
Truscott, meanwhile, beat Jaime Olson of Ishpeming, 6-0, 6-4.
“My ball placement was good, my serves were ‘on’ today and I came to the net a lot,” Truscott said. “(Olson) hits everything back to you and my approach shots had to be good. I just had to attack.
“In the second set,” Truscott added, “I had to slow it down and just try to get my shots in.”
Said Iron Mountain coach Greg Stegall: “Olivia’s a sophomore with a good work ethic. She’s a competitor.”
The Mountaineers’ Bugni sisters, who won a peninsula crown at No. 3 doubles last season, knocked off Westwood’s Hebert and Hewitt, 6-1, 6-3.
“We had to get each other’s confidence up. Those (Westwood) girls are good,” said Emily, 45 minutes older than her twin.
Added Kate: “We hit the ball well, and communicated well. I was also good at the net.”
Iron Mountain placed second to Westwood last year by two points.
“It seems to be our scenario: we come up one match short of making everyone happy,” Stegall said. “It’s disappointing to come up one point short.
“But I have a good group of sophomores — five are coming back. It’s a pleasure to work with them.”
Ironwood’s Rachel Pallin and Danielle Begalle defeated Adelle Gendron and Alex Paquette of Munising, 6-4, 7-5, at No. 1 doubles.
“We had to fight for it,” Begalle said. “This was only our second time playing together.
Added Pallin: “We took our time and placed our shots well. We weren’t rushing.
“What a way to end our senior year. This was (coach Annette Burchell’s) first time with a flight winner in the U.P. Finals (in her 10 years of coaching).”
Click for full championship match results.
PHOTOS: (Top) Westwood's Rachel Anderson returns the ball to her West Iron County opponent during their championship match. (Middle) Iron Mountain’s Katie Brule runs to return the ball to her Ironwood opponent during a championship match of the Upper Peninsula Division 2 Finals on Wednesday. (Photos by Adelle Whitefoot for Second Half.)
'All Joy, No Fear' Greenhills Celebrates 3rd Girls Tennis Finals Victory
By
Tim Robinson
Special for MHSAA.com
June 4, 2022
ANN ARBOR — Ann Arbor Greenhills girls tennis coach Mark Randolph had an interesting comparison after the Gryphons won their third Lower Peninsula Division 4 Finals title Saturday.
“The way I put it, I’ve been gestating this team for four years,” he said. “I’ve not slept a lot the past couple of months, because I knew what we could do, but we had a couple kids come down with COVID, we had a broken foot, a rolled ankle. We had a kid who had a upset tummy. There’s always something, and every team has the same thing. So the job of a coach is to turn variables into constants.”
That he did. Greenhills had six flights reach Saturday’s finals at University of Michigan, four of them finishing as champions, on a team that had a near-total turnover in its singles lineup in 2022. Among the changes: Last year’s top singles players, seniors Georgie Branch and Rukmini Nallamothu, moved to No. 1 doubles.
They were champions in their flight this weekend, as were Shangyang Xia (No. 2 singles), Sophie Chen (No. 3 singles) and the No. 4 doubles team of Sabeen Malick and Meera Tewari.
The Gryphons, whose previous titles came in 2009 and 2017, ended the reign of Bloomfield Hills Academy of Sacred Heart, which had won three Division 4 crowns in a row and seven of the previous nine. Greenhills finished with 35 points, compared to 26 for Sacred Heart and 18 for third-place Grand Rapids Catholic Central.
One key for the Gryphons was a simple slogan Randolph used as a mantra: “All joy, no fear.”
“We kept saying it out loud,” Branch said. “It kept running through my brain while I was playing my final match. “All joy, no fear,” and I played like that.
But the Gryphons displayed no small amount of mental toughness.
Randolph said the team of Branch and Nallamothu epitomized the Gryphons’ grit in the final, defeating the Sacred Heart team of Marisa Nafso and Kayla Nafso in their third meeting of the season.
"We had a couple of matches where we were way down, or a two-point match and we fought back against good teams, and we got a lot of character points,“ Randolph said. "So we’re really, really proud of the way the kids fought.”
But the camaraderie the Gryphons enjoyed as a team also played a role.
"I felt like I reconnected with tennis in a different way,” said freshman Maddie Morgan, who reached the semifinals at No. 1 singles. "In USTA, it’s very competitive. The vibe isn’t as welcoming as high school season is. So I regained the ability to love playing tennis, and I really looked forward to the matches.”
Branch and Nallamothu, who last season played No. 2 and No. 1 singles, respectively, embraced both their new roles on the court and as team captains guiding a group with six freshmen.
"I did not enjoy playing singles,” Branch said. "It was so lonely, and this year to come out and play with my best friend and play 1 doubles together was like more than I ever could have wanted.
"All these freshmen who came in didn’t know that to expect,” Branch continued, "and we got to shape the team how we wanted it. We got to create the vibe we wanted and got to decide how we wanted it to go and how they can take it forward for next year."
The duo will be able to watch from a good vantage point: Both will attend nearby U-M next year.
Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett’s Maddy Zampardo, a junior, defeated two-time champion Moorea McNalley of Clarkston Everest Collegiate 6-0, 6-4 to win No. 1 singles.
Zampardo enjoyed her first year of high school tennis.
"It was really cool because typically I don’t have a team when I play tennis,” she said, "so it was really nice to have a team supporting me and me supporting them. It was just a lot a fun and a cool experience to represent my high school.”
PHOTOS (Top) Ann Arbor Greenhills celebrates its third Finals team championship Saturday at U-M. (Middle) An Academy of the Sacred Heart doubles team receives a volley. (Below) Greenhills serves during a doubles match. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)