Holland’s Council Rock South High School dashed New Oxford’s hope for a Class AAA state team tennis championship on Saturday, defeating the Colonials by a score of 3-1. It was New Oxford’s first loss of the season.
Council Rock South went on to win the state championship.
The Colonials got their only win at No. 3, where Kaelyn Balko triumphed over the Golden Hawks Anya Zubenko by 6-4, 6-4.
In match 2, Allison Horick dropped a hard-fought set to Michelle Lerman, 6-2 and 7-5.
Council Rock then swept the doubles competition with the team of Kim Chen and Emma Traktovenko besting New Oxford’s Alex Wolf and Joslyn Loss, by consecutive 6-4 counts. Ava Bogard and Elizabeth Krachik defeated Emily Millar-Kellner and Kylie Wampler by 6-1 and 6-2.
With the match already in hand, the No. 1 pairing of New Oxford’s Anya Rosenbach and Dasha Chichikina was not completed.
The girls played extremely well, with grit and passion,” said Colonials coach Travis Martin. We didn’t know what to expect from the Philly School.”
“I wouldn’t call it a disappointment given what they did and how we got there. We were competitive in every match. We knew we had to give our all.
It was very tense at times. We were getting under their nerves,” he said.
Martin said the team had talked about next year’s expectations after the match. “We’re losing 4 seniors. We’re going to be strong but not nearly as deep. But a lot of other schools are losing players too. We’ve been there now and we know what it takes.”