Tess Manthou and Eliana Spero came about as far as a duo possibly could in a very short time this spring.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kentwood High\u2019s standout doubles team sparingly competed with one another during the regular season, but joined forces during the postseason these last three weeks.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
After taking second at league three weeks ago, Manthou and Spero delivered a mild surprise by grabbing a district title a week later. This past weekend at the Class 4A state tournament in Vancouver, Manthou and Spero nearly pulled off the perfect finish. Kentwood\u2019s dynamic duo won three-straight matches in Vancouver before falling to Brittany Ellingsen and Anna Romanovsky of Skyview in a marathon championship match, 6-2, 6-7, 7-6 (8-6).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had our opportunities,\u201d lamented Manthou. \u201cWe had four match points, but weren\u2019t able to put the ball away.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Though the end result may me bittersweet, the pair of Conquerors made some impressive strides in a very short time, Kentwood coach Ingrid Bakke said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe girls did a great job and competed in every way we ask them to,\u201d Bakke said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Manthou and Spero knocked off Ellingsen and Romanovsky in the championship match of the West Central District tournament a week earlier at Sprinker Recreation Center in Spanaway. Though the state championship match was just as tight, the Skyview tandem had a slight edge due to the fact that they were playing on their home court, Bakke said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe finals were intense to say the least,\u201d Bakke said. \u201cIt was (Skyview\u2019s) home club in Vancouver, (and) they had a lot of support and wanted revenge.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Kentwood doubles team opened the tournament with a 6-2, 6-0 throttling of Kamiak\u2019s Zoe Jovanovich and Veronica Ahn. Manthou and Spero moved on to beat Annie Singe and Bailey Kilmer of Olympia in the quarterfinals, setting the stage for a tight 6-2, 5-7, 6-1 victory over Garfield\u2019s Fiona Cerf and Arina Abott of Garfield in the semifinals.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Despite the championship loss, the junior Manthou and senior Spero both moved up from last year\u2019s finish, when each of them had a different playing partner. Manthou took third in doubles last year while Spero finished in seventh.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was definitely a disappointment to lose in the finals,\u201d Manthou said. \u201cBut to take a step back and think about taking second in state makes it feel a whole lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Also enjoying an impressive showing was Tahoma\u2019s doubles team Maddie Turek and Sierra Southworth. Turek and Southworth, who won the South Puget Sound League title three weeks ago, grabbed a third-place finish after beating Cerf and Abott of Garfield, 6-3, 6-2. The lone loss for the Tahoma pair came against eventual state champions Ellingsen and Romanovsky.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 ALSO: Outside of the two doubles teams, Kentridge tandem of Vincent Lin and Alex Yi were the only other Kent School District players to win a match at the state tournament. Lin and Yi opened with a win over Jackson\u2019s James Okubo and Peter Cung before dropping two in a row in the double-elimination tournament.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tess Manthou and Eliana Spero came about as far as a duo possibly could in a very short time this spring.<\/p>\n
Kentwood High\u2019s standout doubles team sparingly competed with one another during the regular season, but joined forces during the postseason these last three weeks.<\/p>\n
After taking second at league three weeks ago, Manthou and Spero delivered a mild surprise by grabbing a district title a week later. This past weekend at the Class 4A state tournament in Vancouver, Manthou and Spero nearly pulled off the perfect finish. Kentwood\u2019s dynamic duo won three-straight matches in Vancouver before falling to Brittany Ellingsen and Anna Romanovsky of Skyview in a marathon championship match, 6-2, 6-7, 7-6 (8-6).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had our opportunities,\u201d lamented Manthou. \u201cWe had four match points, but weren\u2019t able to put the ball away.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-8331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8331"}],"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=8331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8331"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=8331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}