Left to right, Holly Gillick, Miriam Welch, Kenzie Gilland, Grace Dressen, Macy Wallenstein, Madison Buehner, Brook Buehner, Karlie Bosma, Briana Slack, and Kenzie Bosma.
The Lennox High School girls’ tennis team finished their season at the State Tennis tournament in Rapid City on Oct. 7th and 8th.
“I’m super proud of how we competed and handled ourselves not only at the state tournament, but for the whole season,” said Oriole head coach, Kevin Plank. “We all are happy about our season and how we competed at state.”
Competing at the tournament in singles was Madison Buehner, Grace Dressen, Brooke Buehner, Macy Wallenstein, Miriam Welch and Karlie Bosma. In doubles, the pairings that competed were M. Buehner and Dressen at flight #1, B. Buehner and Wallenstein at flight #2 and Welch and Kenzie Gilland at flight #3.
Day one started with doubles, the teams had some favorable match-ups and after some hard-fought matches flights #1 and #2 both won their first-round matches against Spearfish. Unfortunately flight #1 couldn’t overcome the #3 seed from Rapid City Christian. While playing for 5th and 6th place, they ran up against a strong team from Pierre, so in the end earned a sixth place finish. Flight #2 then competed against the #1 seed from St. Thomas More, they competed hard and had a great match, but in the end dropped the match. The duo, however, avenged a loss from earlier in the season against Vermillion and also went toe-to-toe with Pierre to win in a tie-breaker to earn a fifth place finish.
Flight #3 competed hard too, but fell to Aberdeen Roncalli in the first round, but redeemed themselves by earning wins versus Milbank and Spearfish to earn the consolation championship.
After a few rounds of doubles, singles started. M. Buehner at flight #1 avenged a loss from the season against Aberdeen Roncalli and pulled out the win in a close tie-breaker to take her to the quarterfinals. Unfortunately, she then ran into two tough opponents from Vermillion and Pierre to end her state run.
At flight #2 Dressen had a first round match up with Pierre where she competed hard but unfortunately fell short. She made it to the consolation finals, but dropped the match to Milbank to end her run.
At flight #3 B. Buehner came out of the gates with energy and confidence in her first match against Madison and took the first set, unfortunately her opponent picked up her play in the second set to take it to the tie-breaker. The tie-breaker went back and forth and each player had match points.
In the end, Madison was able to earn the win. Fortunately, Buehner carried her energy and play into the consolation side to earn the consolation champion over Spearfish.
At flight #4 Wallenstein faced off against Aberdeen Roncalli in her first match but unfortunately she wasn’t able to earn the win. She kept competing and playing well while earning wins over Spearfish and Milbank to claim the consolation championship.
At flight #5 Welch dropped her first-round match to Milbank, and then in the consolation quarter finals she kept competing, but couldn’t overcome the strong play from Madison.
At flight #6 Karlie Bosma started off strong with a quick win over Madison to give her a matchup vs the #2 seed from Vermillion. Bosma kept her strong play going and had her chances in each set, but unfortunately couldn’t overcome the consistent play from the eventual flight #6 winner. This set her up with matches vs Rapid City Christian and St. Thomas More where she took care of business in both rounds with her strong and consistent play to earn a fifth place finish.
In the end, the team ended up in 7th place with 142 points.