Girls tennis: Stevenson sectional finals delayed to Tuesday
A cold, gusty weekend with rainouts and lightning delays seemed par for the course.
"The COVID-19 year has already been a bizarre year," Libertyville girls tennis coach Dan Kiernan said. "This was a tough day. But at least we got something in."
The Class 2A Stevenson sectional was supposed to be wrapped up on Saturday afternoon at the Vernon Hills Athletic Complex. But bad weather has forced the finals into Tuesday.
It will be a busy day for Lake Forest, which got teams into both sides of the singles finals as well as the doubles finals, and is essentially already the team sectional champion, but will finalize that on Tuesday.
Once again, Kiernan saw his top singles player taken out by Lake Forest after all the delays let up on Saturday afternoon.
Autumn Rabjohns of Lake Forest defeated Margaret Forkner of Libertyville 6-3, 6-1 in the singles semifinals. Rabjohns also beat Forkner in the state semifinals consolation bracket last year.
"They've had some really good matches," Kiernan said of Forkner and Rabjohns. "Maggie can dominate and she is strong and hits a big ball. She's always done a good job for us and she also had a good match against (the other Rabjohns) last week in the conference championship match."
Forkner, who won a sectional title last year, faced the other Rabjohns sister, Kiley, in last week's North Suburban Conference championship match, which Rabjohns won to lead Lake Forest to the NSC title.
On Saturday at Stevenson, Kiley Rabjohns, the two-time defending state champion, defeated Alexis Hyde of Mundelein in the other semifinal, 6-1, 6-0.
That sets up a sectional singles championship match on Tuesday between sisters Autumn and Kiley Rabjohns. They led Lake Forest to the team state championship last year.
"If we had state this year, Lake Forest would have won it this year, too," Kiernan said. "Every year, they are right there. They've got good coaches and they just get good groups of kids."
Tuesday's sectional doubles championship at Stevenson will also feature an all Lake Forest final.