NLC Tennis Tournament: Tigers Start Solidly As Round One Halted
PLYMOUTH — First came the lightning. Then the rain. Then, after some handy work squeegeeing the courts dry at the Mary Beth Hunter Tennis Complex, another flash of lightning.
More than two and a half hours after play was halted by the first lightning delay, officials at Wednesday’s Northern Lakes Conference tennis tournament at Plymouth were finally forced to concede to Mother Nature, postponing play until Thursday. A total of 13 matches were completed, but seven others were halted in either the first or second rounds at Wednesday’s opening night of play. Those matches will resume at the exact points at which they stopped when the tourney reconvenes in Plymouth Thursday evening.
“With that second delay, you look at the clock for when you could potentially resume play, gauge that it is a school night, the court conditions, with that there’s more rain moving in. All those factors came together to make the decision,” said Warsaw AD and tournament director Dave Anson.
“Great job to Plymouth and the staff. They did a wonderful job getting out the squeegees. The kids, the coaches, several coaches from other teams chipped in. They did an awesome job to get those courts ready, and I think in five more minutes, they would’ve been ready.”
Warsaw, which wrapped an unbeaten NLC dual meet season with a 5-0 win over Goshen Monday night, made short work in its first three singles matches Wednesday.
Liza Lewis shut out Northridge’s Riley Wheatley 0-0 at 1 singles, and fellow Lady Tigers senior Ella Knight was nearly as efficient in a 1-0 defeat of Goshen’s Lucy Kramer at 2 singles. Alyssa Zellers needed a little longer to dispatch Elkhart Memorial No. 3 Eva Morales but still managed to do so in straight sets, 3-1.
Warsaw’s 1 doubles match with Elkhart Memorial was halted in the third set with Taylor Shoaf and Rachel Boyle trailing Memorial’s Hannah Hakim and Paula Almirall, 3-0. Warsaw’s 2 doubles match with Wawasee — where Lady Warriors Brianna Haessig and Molly Jones led Reagan Merchant and Rachel Yeager 4-2 in the first set — was also brought to a standstill by lightning.
Wawasee’s 2 singles match between Elizabeth Kleopfer and Plymouth’s Kyla Heckaman was also postponed, as was the 1 doubles match between NorthWood’s Kennedy Wiens and Betsy Nunemaker and Wawasee’s Kabrea Rostochak and Courtney Larson — which NorthWood led 5-2 — and the 2 singles match between Northwood’s Gretchen Adams and Memorial’s Filippa Klasson.
Those matches, a 2 singles match between Northridge and Concord and a 2 doubles match between Plymouth and Memorial, will be the first on as play resumes Thursday.
“Any first and second round (matches) of this tournament, we want to start as soon as we possibly can,” explained Anson. “So whenever a match can physically get put on a court as teams arrive, we’ll get them on the court. For tomorrow, there’s going to be matches that need to resume, so those will be the first matches.”
In addition to Warsaw’s singles sweep, a number of other matches were completed Wednesday.
Round robin runner-up Concord had already clinched four matches when play stopped with wins at 1 and 2 singles and 1 and 2 doubles. Plymouth had wrapped three wins at 1and 3 singles and 1 doubles, and NorthWood had claimed a pair of wins at 1 singles and 2 doubles. Northridge clinched its lone win at 3 singles, while Wawasee suffered losses at 1 and 3 singles.
The plan is to get completely caught up with the original tournament timetable when play resumes Thursday, leaving only the final round to be played Friday.
“We want to get through tomorrow’s second day of the tournament completing the second round. We want to make sure that we end tomorrow caught up going into the final round Friday,” Anson said.
“You want to have one match that final round. Hopefully we can get all that done on Friday.”