Vikings, Cavs take all tennis regionals spots

Oct. 13—Day two of the 3A version of the Sandhills Athletic Conference tournament was all Union Pines and Southern Lee, and featured two upsets.

Three spots in both singles and doubles at the upcoming 3A Mideast Regional tournament were up for grabs on day two of the SAC event at Southern Lee High School. Union Pines, the top 3A team in the league in duals, took all three of the singles spots and then put one of its doubles teams into the regional as well, while the doubles championship was an all-Southern Lee affair.

That produced the upset, although in some ways it wasn't a surprise. After two hard-fought semifinal matches, Southern's top two doubles teams played on their own court with guaranteed regional spots, but still had to settle the conference title.

For much of the season, Kate Jackson and Blaire Young made up the Lady Cavaliers' top doubles team, playing in that spot in eight matches, while Carrie Ellen Bryan and Evie Eller were at the No. 2 seed. This was required under NCHSAA rules, because in most matches, the combined singles seeds of Jackson and Young was higher than that of Bryan and Eller. NCHSAA tennis rules do not allow a doubles team with an aggregate singles seed better than another to be seeded lower in doubles.

Bryan and Eller went 11-1 in doubles during the regular season, 4-0 at No. 1 when Jackson-Young didn't compete as a team, and 7-1 at No. 2. In the championship match against their teammates, they won the title with a 6-1, 6-1 victory.

Interestingly, this was almost not an all-Southern final at all. The semifinal matches were both dogfights, and one of them went to a tiebreaker after the teams split two sets.

Bryan and Eller were pitted against Union Pines' Ceillidh Clendenin and Lynn Yoxtheimer, another duo who punched above their weight in singles all season. The Lady Viking duo went 2-1 at No. 1 doubles and 3-0 at No. 3 doubles during the regular season, and because of this strong performance, represented Union Pines in doubles. They rallied to win set two against the Southern duo and came up just three points shy in the tiebreaker, 6-3, 5-7, 1-0 (10-7).

Meanwhile, Southern's duo of Jackson and Young faced Peyton Koneski and Brooklin Underwood, who were Lee County's No. 2 doubles team for most of the regular season. Jackson and Young prevailed in straight sets, but nearly went to a tiebreaker set themselves, winning a second-set tiebreaker to avoid this fate, 6-1, 7-6 (9-7).

After taking tough semifinal losses, the Union Pines and Lee County teams had to square off for third place, and the last regional berth. Clendenin and Yoxtheimer beat Underwood and Koneski 6-3, 6-4.

The singles semis and finals was just a Union Pines intramural event, albeit at Southern Lee. In the semifinals, top-seeded Lady Viking Tyne Ross stayed undefeated on the season by beating her fourth-seeded teammate Bella Edwards in a shutout. The other semifinal, between the team's Nos. 2 and 3 seeds, was predictably closer but went according to seed, as Abby Robertson downed Madelyn Ragsdale 6-2, 6-4.

In a 3-4 showdown for third place, Edwards upset Ragsdale 6-0, 6-2, and will go to the regionals as a freshman. The finals was an anticlimax, as Ross improved her personal record for the season to 19-0 by beating her teammate 6-0, 6-1. Ross has had her remarkable season despite doing double duty with the Union Pines volleyball team, for which she is a Division I recruit who has signed with North Carolina A&T.

The regional qualifiers advance to the 3A Mideast Regional at Burlington Tennis Center on Oct. 20-21, which is also the site of the 3A state championship on Oct. 27-28.