(Chelsea Update would like to thank Matt Pedlow for the information in this story.)
The Chelsea Girls tennis team won the Regional Championship Thursday with a score of 26 points.
Flint Powers came in 2nd with 24 points, and Haslett finished with 19 points. This is the first outright title for the girls tennis program. Previously, Chelsea shared a regional title with Trenton in 2014.
The girls played incredibly hard all day long, I am so proud of them as a team said coach Matt Pedlow.
Many of them won matches that they weren’t favored in, and we ended up getting 6 flights into the finals, winning four of those flights, the coach said.
They will now move on the MI State Finals on June 1, which will mark the 7th straight year that the Chelsea Girls Tennis team has made the state finals.
It was a long day for the girls, but they battled all day.
The winning flights were:
3 singles- Emma Catalina, d. Flint Powers 7-5, 6-4. Over the past three years, Emma has consistently been the one kid I could count on to win when we needed it most, Pedlow said. This year was no different even though she got moved up to 3 singles.
Her last match was a close fought battle with a very good Powers opponent, but Emma prevailed at the end.
At 4 singles, Carli Martin played great all day, losing a total of only 5 games the entire day. Carli played 2 singles for us last year, but due to injuries we decided she’d be better off at 4 singles this year.
She has certainly peaked at the right time for us, she was the most dominant player of the entire tournament at 4 singles, Pedlow said.
Our 3 doubles team of Madilynn O’Hara and Maddisen Chinavare also dominated their flight, defeating Flint Powers in the finals 7-5, 6-2.
“They frustrated their opponents all day, Maddisen really had her forehand working and the other girls just couldn’t return it. O’Hara played very consistent for us, we knew what they needed to do to win and they went out there and did it,” the coach said, adding, “Great day for both of them.”
At 4 doubles, Corrine Dale and Gretchen Kuras got into a great match with Williamston in the finals, winning 4-6, 6-2, 6-3. This was their second straight match that went to a 3rd set. After getting into a 3rd set with Flint Powers in the semi-finals, the girls had the confidence to prevail against a very good Williamston doubles team.
“Corrine was the consistent one for them, every time the Williamston opponent tried to attack the net Corrine made sure to lob her,” Pedlow said, adding, “This really frustrated them and allowed Gretchen to get more aggressive at the net. It was a great match to watch, and they ended up taking the 3rd set quite convincingly.”
The Bulldogs’ 2 singles player, Kyra Van Batavia had the match of the day, defeating Haslett 7-6, 6-7, 6-3. Kyra had a tough match with the Haslett girl last week, losing 6-2, 6-2. But at regionals, she played out of her mind, frustrating her opponent with her shot selection and playing very smart tennis,’ Pedlow said, adding, “She’s one of the most coachable kids I’ve ever had in our program, and the results from today show how much she’s learned in her first year of playing singles.”
Our 2 doubles team of Maddie Pedlow and Julia Schachinger lost in the finals against a strong Flint Powers team 6-2, 6-4. Both girls played a great match against a decent Williamston team in the semi’s, but seemed to start slow against Powers. They came back in the 2nd set and made it close, but Powers was too much for them.
“When these two are on, they play incredible doubles but on this day they got beat by a better team,” Pedlow said.
At 1 singles, Kelsie Weinreich lost in the semifinals to Haslett, and our 1 doubles team of Kendall Tucker and Morgan Moore lost to Flint Powers in the semi-finals.
“It was the best match of the year for the 1 dubs team, they played great but lost to a very good Powers team,” Pedlow said, adding, “Kelsie simply ran into a girl who returned every shot she hit. It’s frustrating to play against someone who is so consistent when you think you hit winners, but her opponent did very well returning everything.”
