PHS Girls Tennis Celebrates 7th NLL Title
Perrysburg High School Tennis Team entered the NLL Tournament with a hard fought 7-0 regular season NLL record. The team had 2 very close victories of 3-2 over both Anthony Wayne and Sylvania Northview. Both opponents were eager to defeat the Jackets in Tournament play. On Tuesday, September 24, the PHS team won all 1st round matches at all positions. 2nd round matches were much more challenging.
Junior Sydney Onest beat Aliza Lankenau of Napoleon 6-2, 6-1 to earn a spot in the finals at 1st singles. Senior Lydia Ellinger had an extremely challenging match against Northview's Jillian Turner. She lost the 1st set 1-6 but came back strong in the 2nd and 3rd sets 7-5, 6-1 to win the match. Freshman Mona Abdul-Aziz had a 3.5 hour match at 3rd singles. Unfortunately she lost the match to Kelsey Verhoff of Anthony Wayne 4-6, 6-2, 7-6. She had one additional match that she won against Audrey Geyman of Bowling Green 6-2, 6-2 to earn a spot in the 3rd/4th playoff match.
At 1st doubles senior Mia Schmittenberg and junior Julia Fujita also had a tough 2nd round match. They lost 0-6 in the 1st set but dominated in the 2nd and 3rd sets 6-1, 6-3 over Campbell and McDaniel of Northview to earn a spot in the finals. Senior Lexi Siefke and junior Grace Reiter won their 2nd round match at 2nd doubles 6-3, 6-3 over the Northview team of Wachob and Thielen. This was a team they had originally lost to during the regular season. This helped them earn a spot in the finals.
On Wednesday play began outside on a very windy day at Bowling Green State University but was brought inside to Perrysburg Tennis Center after it started to rain. Perrysburg had 4 positions in the finals and 1 position in the 3rd/4th playoff. Anthony Wayne had 3 positions in the finals and 1 in the 3rd/4th playoff. Due to the way scoring is done it was still possible for AW to win the tournament.
The first match to finish on Wednesday was the match against Abdul-Aziz and Espinoza of Napoleon at 3rd singles. Abdul-Aziz dominated in the match to win 6-0, 6-0 and earn 7 points and 3rd place. The most important victory for the Jacket team came when Ellinger beat Anthony Wayne's Elizabeth Seiple in the finals at 2nd singles. Ellinger won 6-0, 3-6, 7-5 which cemented the victory for the team with a direct win over Anthony Wayne. Ellinger earned 14 points for the team while Seiple earned 10 points for her team. Schmittenberg and Fujita finished next with a huge win over Bowling Green team of Quinn Beeker and Faith Zhang 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 to win the 1st Doubles position. Reiter and Siefke at 2nd doubles lost a tough match to the 1st seeded team of Pittman and Foukes of Anthony Wayne 6-2, 6-3. This was enough to earn the 2nd doubles team 10 points towards the team total. The final match to be completed was the 1st singles championship with Onest and Avi Shah of Springfield. Shah actually played on her boy's team last season because she had moved to the district after the girls team had started. She finished in 3rd place for the 1st singles position in the Boy's NLL Tournament. During the regular season Onest had beaten Avi in a very long close match with a score of 5-7, 7-6, 6-1. On Wednesday Onest won the first set in a tiebreaker 7-6 after having moved indoors at 5-6. Unfortunately Shah enjoyed playing indoors without the wind as an element. She won the next 2 sets 6-4, 6-2 to earn the 1st Singles Title for 2019. Onest fought hard throughout and contributed 10 points to the team's overall score.
The Jackets ended up earning 2-1st place wins and 2-2nd place wins plus a 3rd place win. Anthony Wayne ended up with 1-1st place win, 2-2nd place wins, 1-3rd place wins and 1-5th/6th place win. Perrysburg earned 55 points in the tournament while Anthony Wayne finished with 43 points and Northview had 33 points. This was the Jackets’ 7th straight title.
Posted: Friday, October 11, 2019