At one point or another, Center Grove’s girls tennis team trailed Franklin in the opening set in four of the five matches on Friday.
The eighth-ranked Trojans stayed the course, however, winning their own sectional with a hard-fought 4-1 victory over the No. 19 Grizzly Cubs in the championship match of the Center Grove Sectional.
It’s the 31st time Center Grove has claimed a sectional title — eighth best among girls tennis programs in Indiana. The Trojans have won six straight dating back to 2015 (there was no 2020 season due to COVID-19).
Taking such continual success for granted could be deemed human nature, though Center Grove coach Debby Burton makes sure her players don’t.
“I definitely make sure they know that everybody wants to beat you,” Burton said. “You’ve got to work extra hard, and we really have to work on our mental toughness. It doesn’t matter what our result was the first match.
“We’re really trying to focus on the fact that every match could be our last match because it’s the tournament. Being expected to win, does that get old? I mean there’s good and bad with that. It’s just something you have to figure out how to deal with.”
Center Grove senior Ashlee Fisk downed Franklin freshman Rylie Wilkison, 6-0, 6-0, at No. 1 singles; the remaining four matches proved more suspenseful, including at No. 2 doubles where the Trojans’ combination of freshman Lauren Dick and junior Hudson Gilstorf rallied from an 2-0 deficit in the first set to defeat the Cubs’ Haley Halderman and Emma Sappenfield, 6-2, 6-1.
“It took us two games to get warmed up and into the match, but then we started rolling,” Dick said. “It definitely adds a little more pressure having already played them, but you learn to have some more ideas and strategies against those opponents.”
The Trojans sealed the triumph with a third point when senior Sonya Vyas won the second singles match over Ailyn Hendricks, 6-2, 6-1. Franklin’s point was scored by the No. 1 doubles tandem of sisters Haylie and Chelsie Rayl, who won against Sydney Plowman and Sapna Vyas, 6-4, 6-2.
The Rayls will return to Center Grove either Tuesday or Wednesday for individual sectional competition.
“I’m excited. This is what we were hoping for,” said Haylie Rayl, the lone senior among Franklin’s seven starters. “It would be nice to have the team going to regionals, but this team is going to be loaded in the future. They’re going to be awesome.”
The third singles match lasted longest as Center Grove freshman Deepthi Shankar shook off a 6-1 loss to soph Emma Williams in first set to take the second, 6-2, and force a tiebreaker. Williams held a 4-3 lead in the race to 10 points, but Shankar controlled the action the rest of the way for the win, 10-5.
The Trojans return to their home courts for Tuesday’s regional. The Trojans face Southport in one semifinal, with Roncalli and Triton Central to square off in the other.
