3rd time’s no charm
Hawks girls tennis ousted in 1st round at home for 3rd straight year
Next season, Travis Bogart joked minutes after this one ended, the Gila Ridge girls tennis team may hope for the No. 9 seed.
“Home matches aren’t working out for us,” he said.
For the third year in a row, the Hawks hosted a Division II first-round state tournament match, and for the third year in a row, they lost by a score of 5-2.
Just like last year against No. 11 Seton Catholic and two years ago against No. 11 Sabino, the No. 7 Hawks dropped four of six singles matches as well as the first doubles match to finish Tuesday against No. 10 Greenway.
And though Bogart has felt all three years that his team easily could have or even should have won, Tuesday’s was close in a way the others weren’t.
Three of the Hawks’ four singles losses went three sets, whereas none of last year’s and only one of the previous year’s did, and the decisive doubles loss came by a score of 9-7 in a match Gila Ridge led 5-2 at one point.
“Honestly we’ve got to get it out of our heads that we’re not as good as Phoenix schools,” Bogart said. “We’re every bit as good as them. The last three years, I think we’ve been the better team. But fear got into them and they just weren’t able to finish like they normally would all season.”
Bogart was proud of his seniors, two of whom went out with wins in their final singles matches. No. 1 Jessica Roth cruised to a 6-1, 6-2 victory over McKenzie Cook, while No. 3 Katie Gronbach defeated Jacqueline Freeman 6-3, 6-4.
“The seniors stepped up,” Bogart said. “Jessica played awesome, and Katie won in straight sets, but it was a tough straight sets. (Freeman) plays a slow style that Katie doesn’t play against well.”
Roth and Gronbach — while two singles matches were still going on — carried their momentum over
to the start of the No. 1 doubles match before Greenway’s MyKenna Nelson and Megan Mattingly rallied for the 9-7 win, which brought an end to the team match before No. 2 and 3 doubles had even begun.
The third senior in the Hawks’ lineup, No. 2 Allison Taylor, fell 2-6, 2-6 to Nelson in singles, but, Bogart said, “I’m confident (Taylor and sophomore Danielle Monroe) would have destroyed in (No. 2) doubles.”
Monroe, playing at the No. 5 spot, suffered her first singles loss of the season — excluding Crim Smash — to Mattingly, who rallied for a
3-6, 6-4, 6-4 win after Monroe claimed the first set.
Gila Ridge’s No. 4, Kara Price, and No. 6, Taytem Taylor, like Monroe were sophomores making their first state appearance, and like Monroe pushed their opponents three sets. Price lost 5-7, 6-4, 4-6 to Madison Shults, while Taylor fell 4-6, 7-5, 4-6 to Brooke Ferguson.
All three of those girls — as well as Gronbach — were forced one spot up the ladder late in the season after the Hawks lost sophomore Nina Hook to an injury. Hook went undefeated this year at the No. 3/4 spots, most notably won the Crim Smash singles tournament in mid-March, and also was a part of the Hawks’ No. 1 doubles pair with Allison Taylor — which Bogart
deemed the best doubles pair he’s had in five years as Gila Ridge’s coach.
The Hawks’ lone regularseason loss — 5-4 at Lake Havasu on April 12 — came in their second match without Hook.
But as Bogart made clear, losing Hook didn’t lower the team’s expectations.
With this having been the program’s fourth straight state appearance and fifth in six years, with each being of the one-anddone variety, there are no moral victories.
“The girls are ready to get a win (at state),” Bogart said. “We just cannot get over that hump. I think when we do, the girls will hopefully hit their stride and push from year to year.”