Celina holds on to defeat Roughriders

CELINA - The girls tennis Battle of Grand Lake went down to the wire on Monday night.

When the dust settled, Celina's Renee Zuercher beat St. Marys' Jennifer Brown in a three-set marathon to give the Bulldogs a 3-2 victory in Western Buckeye League play at the Booster Club Tennis Complex.

The win keeps the Bulldogs a game back of Wapakoneta in the league standings at 6-1 and drops the Roughriders out of the three-way tie for second place with Celina and Shawnee at 5-2.

St. Marys dominated the singles slate, winning two of the three while Celina's doubles teams picked up wins, albeit having to battle at first doubles.

"That was as close as it could get, wasn't it?" Celina coach Jan Morrison said. "I'd say we got our money's worth tonight. We were two evenly-matched teams. I thought that coming in. Fortunately, we pulled through."

"We came up a little short," St. Marys coach Brice Brenneman said. "I'd love to have a couple shots back."

St. Marys' Clare Caywood beat Cami Mohler in first singles 6-1, 6-4 and Roughrider teammate Hanna Felver won in second singles with a 6-0, 6-4 margin.

Celina responded in doubles. The second doubles team of Allie Lehman and Christina Harting battled Bailey Lininger and Grace Dicke before taking a 6-4, 6-3 match win.

In first doubles, however, the St. Marys tandem of Jillian Wine and Kara Danaher was up to the challenge against the Celina team of Breanna Jenkins and Miranda Rable. Wine and Danaher won the opening set 6-4. With the pressure on, Jenkins and Rable rebounded to win the second set 6-4 and then held off the Roughriders for a 6-4 third set win to level the overall match at 2-2.

"First doubles started a bit shakey, but came to life in the second set," Morrison said. "They played well by the third set. Second doubles played pretty steady all night."

With all other matches done, the eyes of players and fans were on Court No. 3 as Zuercher and Brown battled it out to decide rivalry bragging rights. Zuercher won the first set 6-4, but Brown came back to take the second set 6-4.

The pair battled back and forth, with Zuercher keeping the lead at the changeovers. Brown managed to tie the set at 4-4, but Zuercher reached back and won the final two games to take the set and match 6-4.

"She brought it home for us," Morrison said of Zuercher. "We appreciate her hanging in there.

"She didn't know that (her match was the clinching match, which was good for her. She had to have an idea when everybody was over there watching her."

In junior varsity matches, Sierra Zuercher won in singles as did the teams of Bhavya Giratra and Shivani Bhatt, Grace Gabes and Lexi Noll and Cassidy Bowersock and Sara Hellwarth.

Celina will complete today its two remaining league matches with Wapakoneta that were rained out last Thursday and then travels to Van Wert on Thursday for a WBL match. St. Marys hosts Ada today and then Defiance on Thursday.