The Daily Standard
Story Archive
Celina's Elise Muether won the Western Buckeye League second singles title - and her second league title - to help the Bulldogs win their first outright league championship in over a decade on Saturday in Lima.
File photo.
Celina did the major work en route to winning an outright Western Buckeye League girls tennis title through the season in going 9-0 in dual matches and in the first day of the league tournament last Thursday.
Saturday, the Bulldogs claimed the benefits, wining the league tournament and capturing the overall title after a long day due to the weather preventing outside play at the University of Northwestern. Matches were moved indoors to Westwood Tennis Club in Lima.
Celina scored at least eight points in each bracket, winning one title and earning two runner-up and two third-place finishes each to score 48 points to outdistance Ottawa-Glandorf and Wapakoneta, which had 38 points and tied for second overall with Celina.
The title is the seventh in Celina history and first since running the table in 2012.
"We're proud and happy for the girls," said Celina coach Jan Morrison, who receives the Coach of the Year award for coaching the champions. "It was a long day, being indoors all day. "Because of their performance all season, all had good seeds (top four for each) going into the tournament. I knew if we could perform like our seed projected us, we had (the title), but that's not as easy to do as it seems.
"It's unusual that we had no court (meaning the three singles and two doubles matchups) go 9-0, but as a team we went 9-0 in (the regular season). It was a team effort to find a way to win three courts every match.
Elise Muether, who was the WBL third singles champ last season, took home second singles for her second league title. Muether defeated Elida's Abby Campbell 6-0, 6-0 in the semifinals and faced off against Ottawa-Glandorf's Mya Inkrott in a rematch from last Monday. Just as the first meeting, Muether rose to occasion, winning 6-2, 6-3.
Morrison spoke of her pride in not only Muether winning a second court title, but also being named the recipient of the WBL Sportsmanship Award as voted by the other coaches.
"To win the Sportsmanship award the same year you win the team title and court title, that says a lot of the respect her teammates and her opponents have on every court" Morrison said. "Elise's teammates had to perform with sportsmanship as well because that's the perception as a team."
Celina's Kaleah Dailey, pictured, and Larsisa Jackson finished second in first doubles at the WBL tennis tournament on Saturday.
File photo.
Celina's Larsisa Jackson, pictured, and Kaleah Dailey finished second in first doubles at the WBL tennis tournament on Saturday.
File photo.
Kaleah Dailey and Larissa Jackson won their first doubles semifinal 6-4, 5-7, 6-1 over O-G's Jericha Walls and Courtney Miller to move on and face top-seeded Anka Walters and Mylie Moser of Wapakoneta. The final went the full three sets with the Celina tandem winning the opener 6-3 before the Wapak duo winning the final two sets 7-6 (7-2 tiebreaker) and 6-1 to get the win.
In third singles, Katie Guingrich won her semifinal 6-2, 6-3 over Elida's Mya Long to face top-seeded Brooklyn Mowery of Wapakoneta. Mowery came away with the 6-3, 6-4 win to claim the Redskins's second title win of the day.
Celina's Katie Guingrich finished second in third singles at the WBL tennis tournament.
File Photo.
Isabelle Thobe, seeded fourth in first singles, faced top seed Ava Patel of Shawnee in the semifinals, with Patel getting the 6-2, 6-0 win to move Thobe into the third-place match against Van Wert's Mandy Burrenga. Thobe came through with a 6-1, 6-0 win. Patel went on to win the title with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Ottawa-Glandorf's Maggie Schmiedebusch.
The Celina second doubles team of Taryn Willrath and Jadice Dorsten lost a 2-6, 2-6 semifinal to Shawnee's Leah Fuller and Riya Naroor before coming back to beat Wapakoneta's Hannah Palmer and Neaveh Dancer 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 in the third place match. Elida's Saige Bullock and Leila Staley.defeated Fuller and Naroor 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 in the final.
The postseason begins this week as Celina and St. Marys along with several other WBL teams will return to UNOH for the Division II sectional Thursday and Saturday.
