Hinsdale C. repeats its repeat
Every girls high state tennis championship is unique.
Ask Jerilyn Scardina, whose Hinsdale Central Red Devils won their third straight state title on Saturday.
"You have different kids every year and different challenges," said Scardina, who has coached 10 Red Devils state champs. "This year everyone made it into the top eight."
To win this one, the Red Devils lineup had to be shuffled at the beginning of the year, and that entailed taking two-time state doubles champions Courtney Dolehide and Nida Hamilton and switching them to singles in order to maximize the probability of team points.
Hamilton finished second at singles, losing 6-4, 6-4 to Elizabeth Epstein of Chicago Parker, who earned her second straight crown, and Dolehide finished eighth in the tournament.
"You can never say you have the state title in the bag," Dolehide said. "But we're confident in our ability and we were so deep this year, we ended up winning."
"It's fun for our team to get through this together with a different lineup," Hamilton said.
Doubles Kate Klein, a former singles qualifier and Alex Tapak finished fifth in the doubles competition with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Annemijn and Liselot Koenen of St. Charles.
And the Red Devils other doubles team of Taylor Burch and Jenny Porter placed eighth.
In the doubles state final Misia Krasowski and Ulia Fellerhoff of Deerfield topped Kathleen Saltarelli and Nicole Lipp of Lake Forest 7-5, 4-6, 6-3.
Hinsdale Central finished with 43 points, well ahead of second-place Deerfield's 33.
Neuqua Valley was the top team from DuPage County other than the Red Devils. The Wildcats were 12h in the team standings as their doubles team of Sarah Eid and Ali Peters and two singles Natalie Peters and Emily Meyers won a total of eight matches after being knocked out of the championship draw.
"This shows that our players have a lot of drive and that we're a cohesive team," said Neuqua Valley coach Trudy Bennorth. "To place this high everyone had to contribute and they did. We were going for team points."
York was 13th with 14 points, while Hinsdale South were tied for 18th with 11 apiece.
Jenny Hois of Downers Grove South and Kelly Barry of York both finished 9-12.
The Koenen sisters showed amazing resilience after losing in the quarterfinals on Friday.
They bounced back with victories over Loyola Academy and Hinsdale Central (Porter and Burch) before the loss to Klein and Tapak.
"We had to wait four hours before our first match today because of the weather," Liselot Koenen said. "But I'm proud that we made it this far."
St. Charles North was tied for 13th in the standings with 14 points and Geneva was right behind the North Starts with 13.