Sectional titles hard to come by for Avon's district tennis qualifiers

It wasn’t the championship day the Avon Eagles were looking for, but they’ll take it anyway.

After Tuesday’s play, Avon already had five players earn berths in next week’s district tennis tournament by reaching the sectional semifinals. But the Eagles came into the final day of the sectional tournament Thursday at Magnificat hoping to have at least one champion. Both doubles teams were unable to give Avon its second sectional titlist in program history, but Ashley DeHaven still has a chance, as the singles final was halted because of darkness and will continue Saturday.

“Having one (district) qualifier is a privilege,” said coach Eric Korey. “Having multiple qualifiers is a luxury. We’ve been lucky to have this happen a couple times now. But this is a new group. For four of these girls, it’s their first time ever qualifying and it’s a big deal. I think nerves were certainly a part of today’s matches. But we’re super proud of them and they’re super excited.”

Avon’s doubles teams faced each other in one semifinal, with the top-seeded team of Sam Jackson and Grace Gedeon topping the unseeded duo of Samantha Gault and Karina Marsden, 6-2, 6-3.

“It was interesting because we all practice at the same club, so we all kind of had the same techniques, the same ideas of where to place the ball,” Jackson said. “But I feel like that also helps because we could kind of read their minds and we knew where they were going to go. But it’s difficult playing your friends because you also want them to do well and succeed. At least Grace and I didn’t feel bad about beating them because we knew they weren’t going to be eliminated.”

At the same time, DeHaven’s semifinal was a slugfest with Charlotte Grauel of Strongsville. DeHaven, Avon’s lone district qualifier last year, won the match, 6-4, 7-5, in another matchup of players very familiar with one another.

“I thought Ashley battled hard in her match against Charlotte,” Korey said. “She really showed a lot of heart. They’re good friends. They play together all the time. They hit together all the time. They’ve been training together since they were kids, and that makes for extra pressure. We knew it was going to be a tough match, and she showed a lot of heart and courage in that match.”

DeHaven then faced familiar foe Mallory Koch of Strongsville in the singles final. After falling behind, 5-2 in the opening set, DeHaven rallied and had a chance to serve for the set at 6-5. But the top-seeded Koch fought back and broke serve to force a tiebreaker, which she won by the score of 9-7. Koch carried that momentum into the second set, taking a 2-0 lead before the match was stopped.

In last year’s sectional semifinals, Koch edged DeHaven in three sets, 2-6, 6-2, 6-3, and the following week she downed DeHaven, 6-4, 6-2, to earn a berth in the state tournament. Earlier this season the two met in Avon’s 3-2 Coaches Cup victory, with Koch winning in straight sets, 6-3, 6-1.

In the doubles placement matches, Jackson and Gedeon lost the championship match to the second-seeded team of Allison Huff and Lillian Crull of Rocky River, 6-1, 6-1. In the third-place match, Gault and Marsden were defeated by the third seeds, Hannah Riad and Agnes Butler of St. Joseph Academy, 6-4, 6-2.

“It was a rough day at the office for the dubs (doubles teams),” Korey said. “They just didn’t look focused. They didn’t have their mojo working today, and sometimes that happens.”

Jackson added, “It was a tough match, for sure. Both of our ground strokes just really weren’t on point today, and we kept hitting it to the net player. They’re really good, and they were able to put it away pretty easily. We tried changing it up by playing two back, but then they would just hit it close to the net and it was tough for us to run to it.”

But all four doubles players had already earned their first district berths, certainly a source of pride and excitement.

“I’m really happy about it,” Gedeon said. “Last year I wasn’t a district qualifier, so it’s going to be fun this year. Hopefully we get to states.”

In addition to the district tournament, which will be held October 8 and 10 at Springside Athletic Club in Akron, the Eagles also will play at Hudson Monday in the Northeast District championship match of the Coaches Cup team tournament. The winner of that match will go to the final four in the state.

“We have lots of good tennis left on our schedule,” Korey said, “and we’re going get back after it in practice (Friday) and see if we can make improvements.”