Los wins 5A-West girls singles title
■ She and the doubles team of Anglin and Riley will compete at state tournament Oct. 10-11.
Siloam Springs senior Olha Los added another accomplishment to her high school tennis career.
Los defeated Mountain Home’s Macie Heide 6-1, 6-0 to win the 5A-West Conference singles championship on Tuesday, Sept. 27, at Arkansas Tech.
The Siloam Springs girls tennis team finished second overall with nine points behind conference champion Mountain Home, which had 17 points.
The Siloam Springs doubles team of juniors Ava Anglin and Maribel Riley played third overall.
Both Los and Anglin and Riley will compete in the Class 5A State Meet on Monday, Oct. 10, at Hot Springs Lakeside.
After winning her opening round match and quarterfinals match on Monday, Sept. 26, Los came out on Tuesday and defeated Van Buren’s Abby Saniseng 6-3, 6-2 in the semifinals.
That setup a rematch with Heide, who defeated Los 8-5 on Aug. 30 in a conference match in Siloam Springs. Los and Heide have met several times over their high school careers.
Both played doubles as freshmen and sophomores. Last year, Heide defeated Los for the 5AWest tournament championship, but Los defeated Heide in the third-place match in the state tournament.
Los came out in this year’s conference finals on top of her game, her coach said.
“There’s not too much more a coach could have asked for today,” said Siloam Springs coach Clay Taylor. “Olha came out today calm, cool and collected. She played her game, trusted her shots and showed everyone just what she can do with a racket in her hand. She has put in so much work on this tennis team, and her performance today in this championship is proof of that. Now we are turning our eyes to state to bring home another big win and show everyone who Siloam Springs is.”
Anglin and Riley also won their opening round and quarterfinal matches on Monday, Sept. 26, but had to face Mountain Home’s Bianca Talbot and Hannah Baker on Tuesday in the semifinals.
The Lady Bombers’ team defeated Anglin and Riley 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 and would go on to defeat their Mountain Home teammates Isabella Dotson and Kelsey Blackwell 6-2, 6-4 for the 5A-West Conference championship.
Meanwhile, Riley and Anglin bounced back to defeat Kendall Besse and Aileen Gonzalez 8-6 in the third place match.
“Maribel and Ava played amazingly their first two rounds and battled three hard sets against Mountain Home’s number one doubles,” Taylor said. “They communicated with one another, had each other’s backs, and played textbook doubles against the hardest teams in our conference. Their final match against Van Buren was not an easy one, but they pulled out and took home third place. They’ve both put in tremendous amounts of work to get where they are, and will be a force to be reckoned with next season for their senior year.”