Crawfordsville girls tennis might have lost some key contributors from last year’s team, however the Athenians have found players to to fill those gaps in their lineup. Tuesday Cville and Southmont met up at the Crawfordsville Tennis Courts in an early season Sagamore Conference and Montgomery County matchup. CHS ended up taking the match 4-1 against their county rivals to continue their strong start.
The No.1 doubles team of Elyse Widmer and Mia Wagner were first off the courts for CHS as they quickly took care of Courtlyn Carpenter and Olivia Surface 6-0, 6-1. Joining them shortly after was the two doubles team of Ali Brown and Alayna Hall as they were victorious 6-3, 6-1 over Haylee Hall and Jozee Jones 6-3, 6-1.
At one singles Samantha Rohr defeated Hanna Long 6-3, 6-1 and Reagan Cox rounded out the win with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Marley Jones at two singles.
“We’ve had some of these new girls really work hard in the off-season to be able to fill out our lineup,” second-year CHS coach Kara Amundson said. “We were able to have our two doubles move up to one so that was a seemless transition for them. There’s been a lot of indoor practices so far with dealing with the weather but to come out here and get a county win feels nice.”
The Mounties lone win came from Kela Johnson at three singles as she was able to defeat Emily Weliver in three sets coming from 0-1 down to win 6-7 (1-7) 7-5, 6-2. The Mounties like the Athenians due to the weather haven’t been able to really get as much time as they want outside and coach Rob Reimondo is using these early season matches as sort of an extended practice for his team.
“First off I was really impressed with Kela’s effort,” Reimondo said. “She didn’t let the wheels fall off after that first set and she set a strong example for the rest of our team. Overall what hurt us tonight was our un-forced errors. Crawfordsville is a good team and they came out with a strong attitude of wanting to win so my hat goes off to them for that. It’s still real early on in the season and our lineup isn’t set in stone yet. This match gives us a bench mark to work and learn from.”
Crawfordsville with the win now sets themselves up to capture the county title on Thursday when they are back at home to take on fellow county rival North Montgomery. It’s an early-season goal for the Athenians as they look to once again have county bragging rights.
“We take advantage of games like this,” Amundson said. “We’ve been able to take some of things that we’ve worked on inside and have had a lot of girls step up. Players like Reagan play tennis year round and she’s been amazing so far. It’s real helpful for our entire team when girls like her are putting in the work outside of practice.”
The game against the Chargers on Thursday is set back at CHS for a 5 pm start.
The Mounties will return to action on Thursday as well when they host Attica in their home opener.
