ND doubles team medals at state tennis tournament

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Bitter disappointment turned to joy in an instant for Notre Dame tennis players Reagan Kapp and Carly Hopkins Saturday morning at the Cooper Tennis Complex in Springfield.

Kapp and Hopkins had won two of their three matches in the Class 1 Missouri high school girls tournament Friday as they had done last year.

They came into Saturday's match against Emma Samek and Macy Hall of Bolivar with the thought that they needed to win that match to assure themselves of their first state medal.

In the same situation last year, they came up a match short of standing on the podium Saturday afternoon.

Kapp and Hopkins came out strong in the consolation semifinal match and took a 5-2 lead over Samek and Hall. But the Bolivar duo came back to force a first set tie-breaker and saved a couple of set points to win the breaker 9-7.

Samek and Hall carried the momentum of the tiebreaker win to take a 3-0 lead in the second set. Kapp and Hopkins came back and trailed 5-4 but the Bolivar duo held serve to win the match.

The Notre Dame duo looked again to be one match short when they reported their score and prepared to head home to Cape Girardeau.

At that point the emotions changed as they learned that the Missouri State High School Activities Association had added a seventh-place match for the first time and that the top eight girls would receive medals.

"We didn't know that we would be getting the medals until after the match and when we reported our score," Kapp said. "We obviously were very happy. The Bolivar match could have gone either way, and I was proud of the way we played in that match. We hit a lot of good shots."

Kapp and Hopkins day got even better when they defeated Payton Beeler and Idalia Aguilar of Marshall 7-6 (5), 6-1 to claim seventh place and finish their season with a victory.

The Bulldogs path to Saturday was a bit different than last year. In the 2012 tournament, Kapp and Hopkins lost their first match and then won their next two to advance.

This year Kapp and Hopkins won their opening match against Kelly Westphall and Chelsea Long of Chillicothe 6-3, 6-1. They lost in the quarterfinals to Cindy Wang and Ellison Rooney of Pembroke Hill 6-2, 6-1.

The medal-clinching match, although they did not know so at the time, came in the consolation quarterfinals late Friday afternoon as Kapp and Hopkins defeated Makayla Waldner and Kendra Stevenon of Dexter 6-3. 6-3.

"Our goal this season was to win it all," said Kapp, a senior. "My feeling is that if you are not there to win it all, why be there at all? I wanted my final high school matches to be good ones. It was not the pressure of being a senior, but I wanted to be the best player I could be in the state tournament against the best players in the state."

Hopkins, a sophomore who played No. 1 singles for the Bulldogs this year, returns next year with two years of state experience.

"We came into this tournament with more condifence," Hopkins said. "We knew each other's games better. We certainly wanted to win it all, but I am very happy that we were able to come back with medals."