Highland girls tennis team has tough day at O’Fallon, bounces back at tournament
A road trip to O’Fallon on Thursday marked the second match of the 2020 season for the Highland girls tennis team.
The Lady Bulldogs came into the match knowing they’d have a daunting challenge facing the Southwestern Conference power.
After just over two hours of tennis, Highland got an up close reminder of what lies ahead of them in their quest to be an elite team again this fall.
O’Fallon dominated in both singles and doubles play as the Panthers handed the Lady Bulldogs an 8-1 loss.
“It’s definitely a difficult stretch to start with playing the best teams in the (Southwestern) conference in our area,” Highland coach Mat Pellock said. “That’s probably the good part is that you get a dose of competition and know it takes a lot of effort and focus when you are playing this type of competition.”
In the singles flights, Sidney Basler lost 2-6, 0-6 at No. 1 and Hannah Geest fell 3-6, 1-6 at No. 2.
“Sidney was a little overpowered at No. 1 and the girl (O’Fallon) had playing at two was a good net player and that forced a lot of errant hitting from us and it just made it difficult to keep them off the net,” Pellock said.
Brianna Helm lost a tough match at No. 3 singles 4-6, 3-6. At No. 5 singles, Katie Augustin lost 2-6, 1-6 and at No. 6 singles, Addison Crask dropped a 0-6, 1-6 decision.
In doubles play, Basler and Geest lost 1-8 at No. 1. Krista Rittenhouse and Helm fell at No. 2 doubles 2-8, and at No. 3 doubles Augustin and Crask lost 2-8.
In spite of the tough day, there was one bright spot for the Lady Bulldogs as Rittenhouse won her match at No. 4 singles in a 4-6, 7-6, 10-3 three set effort.
“Krista won a super-tiebreaker there and that was a good comeback win for her,” Pellock said. “She was really consistent toward the end and their girl was having some trouble controlling some of her shots. It was just smart to kind of keep making her hit balls and she was able to hang in on some of the powerful shots coming in and able to control those well. It was a pretty strong super tiebreaker finish for her.”
Heather Bradshaw Tournament
Labor Day weekend was a different experience for the Highland girls tennis as they participated in the Heather Bradshaw in the Heather Bradshaw Tournament at Edwardsville High School on Friday and Saturday.
When the weekend was done, the Lady Bulldogs ended up with a challenging but productive outcome. The Lady Bulldogs finished the tournament with a 1-2 slate while Highland’s JV went 1-1 in their two matches.
“I thought they played (overall) pretty good,” Highland coach Matt Pellock said. “Especially our first match today (Saturday) against Belleville Althoff.”
On Friday, the Lady Bulldogs dropped a 7-2 match to Belleville West and the JV club lost a 5-4 nailbiter to Belleville West.
On Saturday, HHS came out strong early and finished strong in taking down the Althoff Crusaders for a 6-3 match win.
“Our first match against Belleville Althoff, I thought we played really well,” Pellock said. “We won four out of the six singles and we played really tight doubles matches that were pretty good.”
Sidney Basler won at No. 2 singles 6-2, 6-3, Krist Rittenohouse won at No. 4 singles 6-3, 6-3, Katie Augustin won at No. 5 singles 6-4, 6-3, and Addison Crask won at No. 6 singles win a 6-1, 6-2 showing.
In the doubles flights, Helm and Basler won at No. 2 doubles 9-7, and Augustin and Crask won their No. 3 doubles match.
Highland lost to O’Fallon in their final match of the day 7-2. At No. 4 singles, Rittenhouse beat Brooke Holland of O’Fallon 6-4, 6-2 and in No. 1 doubles Hannah Geest and Rittenhouse won their match over O’Fallon 8-5.
The Lady Bulldogs JV finished out their stay in the tournament with a strong back draw win, blanking Metro East Lutheran 9-0.
Highland will return to action at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 8, with a nonconference road match against Greenville at Greenville University.
This story was originally published September 4, 2020 at 9:13 AM.