Wellington girls tennis team finish fifth in the Circle Invitational
Sumner Newscow report — The Wellington girls tennis team finished fifth in the Circle Invitational Thursday afternoon. Here were the point totals:
Collegiate 63, Buhler 49, Andover Central 42, Circle 41, Wellington 40, Wichita Classical 21, El Dorado 19, Augusta 4.
“The team finish wasn’t too bad considering we were only two points out of third overall,” said Brian Aufdengarten, Wellington head girls tennis coach.
The best finish on the day for the Crusaders were Jacelyn Buck and Calli Hatfield at No. 2 doubles. They got the top seed in the division and won over Augusta 8-2 and Andover Central 8-2. That set up a match against Collegiate in the finals in which they won 8-7(7-5) in a tiebreaker to take first overall. The pair is now 6-0 on the season together.In No. 1 doubles, Kylie Aufdengarten and Rylee Rusk got the second seed. They won their first match over Circle 8-0. Then they played Andover Central the third seed and lost 8-5. The two led 5-4 and lost four straight games. They then bounced back to beat Buhler 8-1 to finish 3rd overall. The pair is 5-1 on the season.
In No. 2 singles, Oliva Brand got the No. 5 seed and beat the No. 4 seed from Augusta in the opening round 8-3. She lost the top seed from Buhler 2-8, and Collegiate 2-8 to finish fourth overall.
In No. 1 singles, Natalie Henning had a tough round at singles with some really good players. She lost to Circle to start, then lost to Wichita Classical 3-8. In her final match she played awesome and beat Augusta 8-1.
Aufdengarten said about the tournament overall:
“Both singles players continue to get better and made progress from our first meet, with very little practice with all the rain we have had. Kylie and Rylee lost one we didn’t think we should have lost, but that happens we just didn’t play with as much energy as Andover Central. Jacelyn and Calli continued to play well, their last match was a little closer than we liked but they held in there against some difficult players. Wellington will make up their varsity meet on Monday.”
