Columbus North’s Kathryn Wilson sets up to hit a shot in a No. 1 singles sectional tennis match against Columbus East’s Sara Moran Mendez at Columbus North High School in Columbus, Ind., Wednesday, May 15, 2024.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
Columbus North made quick work of Columbus East in Wednesday’s opening round of the North girls tennis sectional.
The Olympians got more game wins than in their previous meeting in the regular season, but the co-No. 14-ranked Bull Dogs easily cruised to a 5-0 win.
North (12-4) moves on to face Edinburgh in Thursday’s 4:30 p.m. semifinal, with Hauser and Greensburg meeting in the other semifinal match. The sectional final is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Friday.
“Right now, these first few matches, we just need to take care of business and do what we need to do. We have to make sure we get ourselves mentally ready for down the road without any hiccups,” North coach Kendal Hammel said.
The Bull Dogs’ No. 2 singles player, Aya Saad, sat out Wednesday’s contest, but it didn’t matter in the final outcome.
Kathryn Wilson beat Sara Moran at No. 1 singles, Annabelle Sun defeated Bruna Carreira at No. 3 singles and Grace Conner and Lison Cloteaux blanked Luci Morales and Saya Hauser at No. 2 doubles, all by 6-0, 6-0 scores.
At No. 1 doubles, Lucy Bergman and Lizzie Bodart topped Zoe White and Lillie Smith 6-1, 6-0. The most competitive match happened where Ayane Umemura filled in for Saad at No. 2 singles and won against Emily Zhu 6-4, 6-0.
East finishes the season 0-16, but made progress since its season-opener against North.
“This year, there was a ton of growth,” East coach Adam Ulrich said. “We asked tonight before they went out and played, we asked them to play their best tennis. That’s what you do at the end of the season, and we made the comment that we got blanked by North in the very first match of the season. Tonight, we got (a few) games on them, so that’s a great improvement. We look at the positives all season, and positive is, we had eight girls play this year and six are coming back. That only bodes well for next year, and the girls have made a ton of progress and have been extremely positive all season taking the lumps, and we just keep going.”
