Central captures district; doubles team makes state

The Tigers will play in the sectional tournament on Saturday.

By Bill Hester ~ Special to the Southeast Missourian

The Central girls tennis team will be represented again at the state meet.

Central coach Annette Slattery's streak of 24 years with a player at the state tournament continued Thursday when Dani Gross and Brett Ford qualified in doubles with a second-place finish at the Class 2 District 1 Tournament at Dwight Davis Tennis Center in St. Louis.

The top two singles players and top two doubles teams from each district qualify directly to the state meet, scheduled for Sept. 22 and Sept. 23 at the Cooper Tennis Complex in Springfield.

The Tigers also won the team title in a close three-way race and advanced to the sectional tournament, which will be hosted by St. Joseph's Academy on Saturday.

Central finished with 23.5 points which was one-half point ahead of Rockwood Summit and Lindbergh. Summit had the most state qualifiers (two) and won the tiebreaker for the second spot. The Falcons will also continue as a team in the sectional tournament and will play St. Joe's. Central will match up with Lafayette, the runner-up in Class 2 District 2. The winners of the Cape Central-Lafayette and Rockwood Summit-St. Joseph's matches will meet for a spot in the MSHSAA team tournament Oct. 21.

"It's great to be back coaching and going back to state," said Slattery, who took four years off -- and Cape Central did not have a state qualifier in those four years.

"The pressure is always on with the success that we have had in the past," Slatter said. "But it is a good kind of pressure. It seems to get harder and harder every year."

Central won on the strength of its doubles play as both teams, Gross and Ford and the tandem of Monica Toole and Liz LaFoe, advanced to the semifinals.

"We've been able to get plenty of singles players to the state tournament in the past, but doubles is usually the best way to get somebody to state," Slattery said. "A lot of times teams will put their top players in singles."

Ford and Gross, who played the No. 1 doubles spot all season for Central, had little trouble advancing to the finals. They defeated Natalie Heutel and Shannon Keefe of Eureka 6-1, 6-1; Francis Pleimann and Kris Hines of Mehlville 6-1, 6-0; and Ashtyn Miller and Sara Barks of Farmington 6-0, 6-2 to qualify for state.

Ford and Gross had 4-1 and 5-2 leads in the first set in the championship match but eventually fell to top-seeded Stacey Goebel and Sarah Dalton of Oakville 7-6, 6-2.

"We knew that Coach had been to state all those years, and we couldn't let her down this year," Gross said.

Ford said it was an advantage that she had played with Gross in doubles for the entire year.

"We have good chemistry and our games complement each other," Ford said. "Dani's better at the net, while I am more comfortable at the baseline. We have no idea what to expect at the state meet since we haven't been there before. We just want to have some fun."

Ford and Gross are the first Cape Central girls players to qualify for state in the 2000s.

"We just want to go out and play the best tennis of our lives at the state meet," Gross said. "If that gets us first place, that is fine; and if it gets us last place, that is fine."

It was a long day for Toole and LaFoe, who had three three-set matches. They opened with a routine 6-0, 6-0 win over Megan Tosie and Laura Confer of Rockwood Summit. They were taken to three sets before winning 2-6, 7-6, 6-4 against Melissa Cullmann and Michelle Ruf of Lindbergh.

Toole and LaFoe came just shy of making it an all-Cape Central final but fell to the top-seeded Oakville team of Goebel and Dalton 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 in the semifinals. They lost yet another three-setter 3-6, 7-6, 6-2 to Farmington's Miller and Barks in the third-place match.

Freshman Sarah Ford had an important win in singles, without which Cape Central would be finished as a team. She defeated Priya Gujarati of Poplar Bluff 7-5, 6-0 before falling to third-seeded Paula Smith of Lindbergh, 6-1, 6-1.

Freshman Lindsey Pingel had a tough draw, facing top-seeded and eventual district champion Sara Helbig of Summit in her first match. She fell 6-2, 6-1.

Summit had both singles state qualifiers, as freshman Laura Needham finished second to Helbig.