The Vashon High School girls’ tennis team came back from spring break with a 3-2 record, ready to get back to work and play some matches.
The team had lost two tough matches going into break and was eager to get back to practice and match play. Unfortunately, the weather continued to be a problem the first week back — rain plagued the practices and forced cancellation of the first two matches. The team finally got back to play on Friday, April 28, hosting a match against Tacoma’s Lincoln High School.
Lincoln is a 4A school with a good tennis program and the matches are usually competitive, but fun. Vashon got off to great start with Lizzie Maciejewski and Hanna Nelson getting nice wins at number one and two singles. Lincoln has a large program with over 50 girls and the team’s depth and experience showed, as Lincoln came back in doubles. Despite some great effort and well-played matches, Lincoln won all three doubles matches to take the overall 3-2. The entire Vashon team got a lot of valuable playing time and played well with some nice wins and some close losses.
Next, Vashon traveled to Granite Falls. For whatever reason, this was a rough outing for the team. Windy conditions, a long travel time and lack of practice didn’t help, but this was not the team’s best match. Granite Falls uses a different format for their matches with four singles and three doubles matches counting toward the varsity results. Normally, this lineup would favor the Pirate team as it would allow them to use more players and take advantage of the team’s depth. That was not the case, however, and Vashon went 3-1 in singles and 2-1 in doubles for a 5-2 loss. On the bright side, most of the losses were in third-set tie breakers, so the match could have easily turned out differently, and the junior varsity teams played well again.
Coming off the Granite Falls loss, the team travelled to Charles Wright Academy (CWA), which is always a tough matchup for Vashon tennis. A couple good days of practice seemed to really help the team’s focus. It was a beautiful day to play, warm and no wind and the Pirates took advantage with some inspired tennis. CWA is very strong at number one singles and doubles, with returning players from last year’s state tournament. Vashon lost both matches, but showed some encouraging signs with significant improvement over the last time they had played. At number two singles, Hanna Nelson got an impressive and hard-earned 6-1, 6-3 win. At number three doubles, Emme Osborne and Jane Oswald controlled their match 6-3, 6-3, so the team score was even at 2-2. In the pivotal match, Yulia Fiala and Tobin Vaughn twice came back from deep deficits to win a long back and forth match 6-4, 7-6 . In other matches, Peytra Gard and Abbie Fiano; Tabitha Gray and Taylor Lighthall; and Jessica Merritt and Alex Koriath all notched 8-2 wins.
As a result of the 3-2 win at CWA, the Pirates are heading into the last two weeks of regular season play tied for first in the league. They traveled to Cascade Christian on Monday; South Kitsap today, Wednesday; then will host Cascade again on Thursday. Monday, May 8, is Senior Day, and the Pirates will host Kings. Nisqually League tournament play will begin Thursday, May 11, at Charles Wright.
— Pat Mulvihill is a Vashon High School girls’ tennis coach.
