Snyder snares district title
Sammi Snyder was exactly where she envisioned she’d be. But closing the deal proved harder than anticipated.
The Exeter tennis star successfully defended her District 3 Class AAA singles title Saturday afternoon at Hershey Racquet Club, but it was not an easy defense. Manheim Twp. freshman Taylor Kopan battled Snyder the entire way before bowing 6- 4, 7-6 (4) in the championship match.
“I knew of her and I knew she was good, but I didn’t think she was that good,” Snyder said, “being a freshman. I’m usually the one who gets the extra ball back and they make the mistakes, but she wasn’t making any mistakes. She was getting everything back. And her angles were amazing.
“I couldn’t even tell you how I won this, because I don’t even know what I did to win.”
Sammi’s second district gold medal marked a third straight year that a Snyder played for the singles crown. Older sister Ali, now playing at LaSalle, made the 2014 title match before winding up with silver. Last season, Snyder won her first D-3 crown when she defeated Yvonne Peters-Washington of Central York, in a match not seen to completion when her opponent had to retire due to illness.
Kopan denied Snyder a go-to putaway shot by getting to nearly everything thrown her way, despite being worked from side-toside throughout the match by the more experienced Exeter ace. The tenacity displayed from Kopan reminded Snyder a bit of her- self, with one caveat: “Yes, but if I was in ninth grade she would have killed ninthgrade me,” she said with a laugh.
Manheim Twp. is so loaded that Kopan isn’t even the Blue Streaks’ No. 1. That honor belongs to teammate Kate Moore, who bowed out of Saturday’s AAA semifinal when Snyder beat her 6-1, 6-0 in a tidy affair.
Snyder was able to overcome being broken onserve by Kopan a stunning six times, three in each set. Snyder didn’t extend a lead more than one game during the first set until she reached 5-3. The second set was even more of a tussle, when Kopan held and broke to grab her first lead of the match at any point, 4-3. It reached 6-5 for the freshman before Snyder recalibrated her mindset.
“I was thinking too much about the overall picture,” she said, “like, ‘Oh my God, I’m gonna lose’ (the set). But then I needed to settle down and just take this point-by-point – and that really helped me, because I focused on each point, rather than the score and the game and the match.”
Snyder broke Kopan back to even the second set at 6, then claimed the tiebreaker and with it, the title by securing consecutive breaks at 5-4.
“It’s a great accomplishment, no matter what, to have the season I’ve had and to have two district championships,” Snyder said.
In the AA title match, Wyomissing’s Alexandra Jadic beat Katherine Long of Trinity 7-5, 6-2.