The race for the South Puget Sound League North Division girls tennis crown won\u2019t be going down to the wire this season.<\/p>\n
Kentwood saw to that last week, upending league-rival Kentridge 3-2 in a pivotal SPSL North tennis match.<\/p>\n
With the victory, the Conquerors (8-0 entering the week) essentially put the clamps on the North crown. Kentridge (4-4) would have been mathematically alive for the North\u2019s top spot with a win. With two league matches remaining entering the week, Auburn (8-2) was the only team within striking distance of the Conquerors. However, Kentwood made it official on Monday by knocking off Kent-Meridian 4-1.<\/p>\n
Last spring, the Conquerors found themselves in a three-way battle for the top spot during the final 10 days of the season and were unable to get the job done.<\/p>\n
It was a different story last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew that destiny was in our hands and I laid that out in front of the kids before the match (against Kentridge) and they came through,\u201d said Kentwood coach Ingrid Bakke said.<\/p>\n
The key for the Conks has been the steady play of veterans, the coach noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese girls have been able to come through,\u201d Bakke said. \u201cThe kids who are leaders have really been there when we needed them to because most of our wins are 3-2. I have counted heavily on the kids who\u2019ve played well in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
Against the Chargers, who were among the favorites entering the season, Bakke received the expected standout play from Nikki Skinner (No. 2 singles) along with the league\u2019s top doubles tandem of Tess Manthou and Alyssa Nagai.<\/p>\n
Skinner knocked off Kentridge\u2019s Vicky Tran 6-1, 6-1. Manthou and Nagai throttled Kentridge\u2019s Alissa Lee and Karissa Lau, 6-3, 6-0.<\/p>\n
The two victories set the tone for the Conquerors, but didn\u2019t clinch a victory.<\/p>\n
The clincher for Kentwood came at No. 3 doubles, where Anastasia Hicker and Maddi Belmondo delivered the goods when it was needed most. Hicker and Belmondo upended Sunita Venkatesh and Rachel Schmidt, 6-2, 1-6, 6-0.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was big because we had to have that one,\u201d noted Bakke. \u201cIt definitely came down to that match. It was clutch. They came out and won that third set. It was an impressive third set.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kentridge picked up wins from Kyana Esber, who held off Eliana Spero in a tightly contested battle (7-5, 6-4) along with No. 2 doubles team Beth VandenHeuvel and Katie Ly, who outlasted Aera Shin and Chelsea Jamieson (6-2, 6-3).<\/p>\n
The SPSL North title is Kentwood\u2019s first since 2007, when the Conquerors rolled to a 13-1 record.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The race for the South Puget Sound League North Division girls tennis crown won\u2019t be going down to the wire this season.
\nKentwood saw to that last week, upending league-rival Kentridge 3-2 in a pivotal SPSL North tennis match.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":12046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-12045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12045"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12045"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}