Bay’s Kelsey Poisson flexes her muscles during her first singles championship at the WSC tourney. Rocky River and Bay tied with 32 points each, but River won the conference crown with two wins over Bay during the season. (West Life photo by Larry Bennet)

River ties Bay but wins WSC tennis crown
By Matt Pawlikowski
Sports
Published Oct. 3, 2007

Saturday was just supposed to be a walk in the park for Rocky River. But when senior second singles player Jesse Magidan went down with an illness, suddenly thoughts of an outright West Shore Conference crown were questionable.

“We were behind from the start knowing we were missing one of the clutch players in the  history of our program,” said coach Ben Purdy. “She had food poisoning and couldn’t make the game, so I knew despite the fact we had it clinched, we still wanted to be on top and it would be tough.”

With her out of the line-up, River would call on senior and three-year letter-winner Mackenzie Hillow to fill those big shoes.  Hillow would make it all the way to the finals before losing to Bay, giving Bay a one-point lead at the time.  But with champs at first and second doubles for River that day, coupled with a semi-final upset that saw Bay’s first doubles team lose to Midview, River got the point back to end the afternoon with a tie for first place. Fairview and Midview took home third place honors with 20 points, while Avon was fifth, scoring 18.

“I’m real proud of the way we played,” said Purdy. “We did what we had to do. We respect the other teams in our conference and have to play our best to defeat all these teams.”

As for Hillow, she was the story of the conference meet. Purdy told her there was going to be a time when he needed her to step up, and sure enough, she came through. Purdy woke her up early Saturday, and came through making it to the finals in the second singles.

“What a cool story for her,” said Purdy. “I called her early in the morning and she said she would be over to the courts, showed up and played well for us. I’m really proud of her.”

Bay came up strong in the singles column, and got its wins in the WSC from Kelsey Poisson, who took home first with her 6-4, 6-0 win over  Celia Waggoner; Chantelle Layton, who beat River’s Molly Kenny 6-4; 6-0, and Sarah Chen, who took the third singles title, 6-4, 6-0.

Fairview got a nice performance out of Kelsey Kilbane, who after falling to Bay’s Poisson 6-1, 6-2 in the semifinals, came back to take third place honors in the third singles with a 5-7, 6-2, 6-0 win over Midview.

The Warriors’ Merianna Shihada also took home third in the second singles with her 3-6, 6-4, 6-0 win over Midview. Also faring well was the second doubles team of Liz Pawlowski and Kristin Hasselschwerdt, who also claimed third place honors with its 7-5, 6-1 win over Avon’s Sruti Ramadugu and Demaline.

Avon’s top placer was Lindsay Aston, who was third in third singles with her 6-0, 6-1 win over Midview. The team of Lauren Aston and Jody Wagner took home fourth place in first doubles.

River’s big wins came in the double competition, where Kaitlyn Super and Allie Sperli won the first doubles, with a 6-2, 5-7, 6-3 win over Midview, and the second doubles where senior captains Lindsey Hobson and Alyssa Abraham downed Bay’s Robbin Banasiak and Christine Kander 6-1, 6-0.

“The two of them know how to play the game,” said Purdy. “ I’m really excited to see good doubles players and not good tennis players in that slot, and this year they have beat some good kids.”

Rocky River clinched the West Shore Conference championship by virtue of its two hard fought regular season wins over Bay.  On Monday, River played the second of two matches against Bay, River being Bay’s only loss in the conference to that point.

The first matchup two weeks ago saw River winning 3-2, winning at second singles with Madigan, first doubles with junior Kaitlyn Super and Sperli, and second doubles with Hobson and Abraham. 

First singles junior and two-time reigning WSC conference champ Waggoner along with junior third singles player Kenney each lost close, hard fought matches.  Nevertheless, River prevailed 3-2. 

The rematch last week would see the same results as the first.  The exact same girls won at the exact same positions the second time around, with River taking a 3-2 win.  That, along with the 5-0 season finale win Thursday against Fairview gave Rocky River’s girls a perfect 12-0 record in the conference and took back the conference crown they had lost the previous year to Bay.