We've Got The County Covered
We've Got The County Covered
The Chinook Sugarbeeters tennis team traveled to Townsend and Helena this past weekend to play in the DAWG BITE Duals hosted by Broadwater High School.
Chinook dueled Wolf Point, Whitehall, Choteau and a combined team of Boulder and Conrad on Friday, and then returned to action on Saturday squaring off against Anaconda, Townsend, Lone Peak, and a combined team from Harlem and Poplar.
The team scores were as follows:
vs. Wolf Point, 6-0; vs. Whitehall, 6-0; vs. Choteau, 6-0; vs. Boulder/Conrad, 5-1; vs. Harlem/Poplar, 6-0; vs. Anaconda, 4-0; vs. Townsend, 5-1; vs. Lone Peak, 5-0.
The matches were again played in an abbreviated format, with each set starting 2-2, with a supertiebreak rather than a third set.
Again the ‘Beeters played just as well as they have all year, losing just two.
“Our players had an outstanding tournament, winning 43 of 45 matches played. Even the two losses were very close, three set matches that really could have gone either way,” Chinook Head Tennis Coach Thom MacLean said, “We were able to size ourselves up against several teams we had not seen yet this season.”
MacLean said the most anticipated match of the weekend came on Saturday in the final dual of the day against Lone Peak. This match pitted Luisa Locker of Lone Peak, who lost in last years state championship to Chinook’s Mariah Swank, faced off against ‘Beeter Brooke Nicholson who finished 3rd at state last year losing a close semifinal match to Locker.
This time though it would be Nicholson who got the win, beating locker in straight sets 6-2, 6-3.
“We’ve had our mind on Locker since the beginning of the season, knowing that the state singles title would most likely go through her, so we had been looking forward to Saturday’s match since it was put on the schedule,” MacLean stated. “We knew it would be a good measuring stick of how far we’ve come since last year and what we still need to work on.”
MacLean said that Nicholson is an incredibly smart player and a tremendous competitor, he said he was impressed with how she played on Saturday and thinks the win will give her a lot of confidence as the they head into the last few weeks of the season.
Chinook’s top four singles players, Nicholson at #1, Megan Pruttis at #2, Nicole McCracken at #3 and Jamie Roth at #4, finished the tournament with undefeated records, and none of them lost a set in the process. The number one doubles team of Lauren Harshman and Cortney Gunderson also went undefeated on the weekend as well. The number two doubles team of Hattie Niederegger and Sierra Swank finished with a record of 6-2.
“There were a lot a good doubles teams at this event. I was very happy with how both duos played,” MacLean noted.
The Sugarbeeters tennis team will round out their regular season this weekend, traveling to Chester on Friday for a rescheduled dual with CJI. Then on Saturday they will be in Choteau for their final regular season contest.
After the conclusion of the regular season the ‘Beeters will move on to post-season play. They will compete in the Class B/C Divisional Tournament in Havre on May 13th and 14th. Chinook will then look to defend their state crown in Missoula on May 19th and 20th at the B/C State Tennis Tournament.
