Girls tennis: York solid from top to bottom vs. WW South
There is a mantra York senior Melissa Cartis focuses on whenever she's down in a tennis match.
Solid tennis.
She had to rely on those words aplenty Thursday in her team's 7-0 nonconference dual meet win over visiting Wheaton Warrenville South.
Facing Tigers senior Emily Orlove, who won the doubles state championship last season with the graduated Samantha Choi, Cartis lost the first set 6-3, then had to battle from behind to win the second 6-3.
That led to a super-tiebreaker, where she quickly got down to Orlove 6-1. But that focus on solid tennis helped her to cut the deficit to 7-5 and then 8-8 before she pulled away with a 10-8 victory and a clean sweep for the Dukes, who are 5-1 in dual meets.
"My coach (Tres Heimann), that's what he teaches me," Cartis said of her key phrase. "When I'm losing he teaches me not to get too down on myself, not to focus on the score, but to focus on playing solid tennis."
Solid as a brick wall - or maybe a backboard - is how you might describe York's performance on Thursday. In addition to Cartis, junior Gianna Nikoleit sailed past Tigers junior Grace DeMars 6-0, while her sophomore teammate Morgan Burnham nearly pulled the same feat against junior Celia Friend 6-1, 6-0.
It was more of the same on the doubles side for York, as the senior-freshman combo of Aleksina Jovic and Keira Polach beat Wheaton Warrenville South senior Anna Huelskoetter and sophomore Emma Berres 6-4, 6-0.
"I've known Keira for awhile now, and we're both really excited she's coming on he team," Jovic said. "It's my last year and we really wanted to play together."
Added Polach: "I think it's really cool that I can look up to a senior, me as a freshman. I think it's so cool having an upperclassman to play with."
At No. 2 doubles the senior-sophomore sister act of Cate and Ellie Duhig came from behind in the first set to defeat the Tigers senior duo of Jill King and Bri Tosto 6-3, 6-2.
"I feel like we have a pretty strong team this season, and we knew that going in," Cate Duhig said. "I didn't expect us to be doing this well right off the bat."
It was a tough afternoon for the Tigers, who fell to 0-2 in dual meets.
"Momentum can swing in those tiebreakers," Wheaton Warrenville South coach Patti Clousing said of the first singles match. "It was a very hard-fought match. I think when the two No. 1s are going that close in a battle, and they are the two best, it's great to watch them battle. It's hard to lose a close match like that."