Published: May 17, 2008 11:26 pm            

South scraps out victory over North in girls tennis sectional championship

TERRE HAUTE — The first sets of Saturday morning’s girls high school tennis sectional championship match were all close, to no one’s surprise.

“What do you expect, when you’ve got the No. 9 team and the No. 11 team [in the state]?” asked coach Bill Blankenbaker of host Terre Haute South rhetorically afterward. “We knew it would be a good match.”

But the host Braves won all five of them, coming behind in at least three to do so, and were on their way to a stunning 5-0 win over Terre Haute North.

“It’s wonderful … unbelievable,” said South’s Hunter Bullock of the winning margin. “We knew we could do it, but we’re happy we did it.

“I think we’re all on Cloud Nine right now.”

Hunter Bullock’s match, of course, could be considered the main reason the final score was 5-0. That meant she’d beaten North’s all-stater Brittany Farmer at No. 1 singles, something that seemed highly unlikely — at least until Hunter Bullock did the same thing two weeks earlier at the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference championships.

“When Hunter beat Brittany at the MIC, we were all like, ‘Wow,’ ” South’s Emma Bilyeu said Saturday. “So we were very excited today when she did it again. I’m really proud of everyone.”

Hunter Bullock’s win was one of two three-set singles matches, and Taylor Bullock’s 7-5, 7-5 win over North’s Sarah Potter — in the all-freshman No. 2 singles match that again provided some exquisite shot making — could also have gone either way.

But the Patriots needed all three singles matches by that point, because South’s doubles teams won the first two points. And the first of them was won by the No. 1 team of seniors Katie Bilyeu and Maddy Bogle, who had lost to the Patriots a month earlier.

Saturday’s match, therefore, “meant a whole lot,” Katie Bilyeu said. “I woke up this morning and was not thinking about anything. I just knew I wanted to win this so bad.”

“It meant so much, especially after the first time [we played the North team],” Bogle agreed. “I think it helped us to lose that [earlier] match, though; it made us see we really wanted it more, and that we had a lot of work to do.”

The difference Saturday, Katie Bilyeu said, was “aggressiveness. Being aggressive at the net and not playing careful. We played scared the last time.”

“We played together and we talked more,” said Bogle. “I think we were more organized [than in the previous meeting].”

The No. 1 doubles match ended in about 70 minutes, and it was almost 15 minutes more before Emma Bilyeu and Mallory Metheny completed their win at No. 2 doubles for the Braves.

“North really pushed us, especially in the first set,” said Metheny, noting that the Braves rallied from a 4-5 deficit for their 7-5, 6-2 win. “We were behind the whole first set … point by point we had to come back.”

Taylor Bullock provided the clinching point for the Braves.

“It feels really good; I’m really excited,” she said later. “Our team did amazing. We’ve been practicing a long time so we could be ready.”

She and Potter have played each other just twice, and both have been classic battles.

“She’s a good competitor,” Taylor Bullock said. “I think we both like playing each other because of the good competition.”

The two three-set matches became anti-climactic at the end, with 6-0 third sets deciding the outcomes, but they weren’t up until then.

Hunter Bullock got the last three games of the first set to take it by a 7-5 score, but then squandered her lead quickly. Farmer pounced for a decisive second-set victory, but couldn’t maintain her momentum either.

At No. 3 singles, North’s Morgan Mills had an early lead on South’s Eesha Purohit, but Purohit recovered to win the set in a tiebreaker. Mills won the second set decisively, only to fall in a third set that had barely started when the meet’s outcome was decided.

“The first set I was down 5-1, so I got focused and went point by point,” Purohit recalled later. “The second set, she played better and I didn’t step up my game … that [match] tells me I can come back, and that you can never give up.”

The day’s play told her something else too, Purohit added.

“It shows how good both teams are,” she said of a match that rarely seemed like a 5-0 outcome.

“It hurts not to have a point up there,” coach Jim Cook of the Patriots said after the match, “but there were so many other good things going on out there.

“The kids were trying hard, and they worked hard all year; I don’t know how they could have worked any harder. We made progress the whole season — we lettered five freshmen — and I hope that helps us out next year.”

“One thing about North and South, we push each other to get better,” Blankenbaker said. “Every match, all the way through [was close]; we won every first set, and that’s a good thing to have in a match you know is going to be close … but even at 6-0, there were two good third sets. This time we just came out on the top end.”

Blankenbaker noted Saturday that he was pleased his players had been able to repeat earlier victories against tough opponents.

“Beating someone for a second time is very big,” he said. “[North’s] whole team played very well.”

“We had a good team, we made a lot of nice trips … you have to see it come to an end,” Cook said. “But South has a nice team, and we wish them the best of luck.”



Terre Haute South 5, Terre Haute North 0

Singles — Hunter Bullock (THS) def. Brittany Farmer 7-5, 2-6, 6-0; Taylor Bullock (THS) def. Sarah Potter 7-5, 7-5; Eesha Purohit (THS) def. Morgan Mills 7-6 (7-4), 2-6, 6-0.

Doubles — Katie Bilyeu-Maddy Bogle (THS) def. Paige Cook-Brittany Cuthbertson 6-3, 6-1; Emma Bilyeu-Mallory Metheny (THS) def. Katie Behnke-Mary Kate Etling 7-5, 6-2.

Next match — South (14-1) plays the winner of the Mount Vernon Sectional on Tuesday in the first round of the Vincennes Regional. North finished 9-3.

        

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