by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — The Wellington girls tennis team placed fourth in a monstrously tough Ark Valley Chisholm Trail League Div. III and IV tournament held at Wichita’s Riverside Tennis Courts, Monday afternoon.

Wichita Collegiate, ranked No. 1 in Class 3A won the tournament with 65 points. McPherson, which is ranked No. 1 in Class 4A, finished with 63.

Winfield placed third with 43 points and Wellington finished with 41.

El Dorado had 27, Buhler 23, Circle 13 and Augusta 2.

The Crusaders will travel to the Regionals in Pratt Friday and Saturday. Winfield, Wellington, Circle and Augusta will be there along with Colby, Larned, Pratt, Wichita Trinity and Ulysses. 

“I was pretty happy on team performance,” said Wellington head tennis coach Brian Aufdengarten. “We finished fifth last season and we thought we could get fourth, and almost pulled off third as a team.”

In No. 1 singles Peyton Adams finished third overall going 2-1 on the day.

“Peyton struggled a little in her opening match against a girl from Circle that got a lot of balls back and didn’t like to hit with much pace on the ball,” Aufdengarten said.

She held on and won then met the two time state doubles champ Lindwall from Collegiate.

“Lindwall won the match but Adams hit very well and got her back in her groove,” Aufdengarten said. “In her final match she beat Groene from Winfield 6-1, 6-1. That was a great match to finish on.”

In No. 2 singles Auni Williams finished fifth which is the seed she was seeded.  She lost her opening match to El Dorado, then beat Augusta 9-1.  In her final match she had an amazing comeback against Wicks from Circle after being down 6-0.

Williams started making less errors, Aufdengarten said, and took an 8-7 lead. Then it went to a tiebreak and Williams won.  It’s the second time this year Wicks has been up on Auni 6-1 and Auni has come from behind to beat her.

In No. 1 doubles Madison Adams and Ryleigh Buck had probably the toughest bracket on the day and took fourth place.  Their opening match they beat a very good Winfield team 7-5, 6-4.

“Winfield put their No. 1 singles girl in doubles today and she will be the 1 seed at regionals on Friday,” Aufdengarten said.

Next the pair had to play the state doubles champions from McPherson and got to 2-2 in each set, but dropped the match 6-2, 6-2.

In their final match the pair had to play the third place team from state Buhler.  The first set was very very close with the Wellington pair dropping it 7-5, Buhler went on to win set two 6-2.

“Madison and Ryleigh played well today and could make some noise at regionals,” Aufdengarten said.

In No. 2 doubles Maggie Fink and Mekenna Adams also took fourth place.

They opened up with an easy win over Buhler 6-2, 6-1.  They then played Collegiate and battled hard at the end of each set but spotted Collegiate a big lead in each set and lost 6-2, 6-2.

In their final match against Winfield the pair dropped a three set battle to the Winfield team who had their regular No. 2 singles player pairing with half their doubles team.

“I felt good about how close their match was because their two singles player is pretty strong,” Aufdengarten said. “We will see a different team at regionals.

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