On November 10, the Girls Varsity Tennis Team faced Bishop O’Dowd in the quarter finals of the North Coast Section Division II Championship. This match took place at our home courts and drew a nice group of Branson Bulls supporters. Coach Chrissie lined up her four top ranked players (Anna Rende, Mirabel Arlander, Audrey Gilmor and Katie Warrin, #1 through 4 respectively) for singles play and Sophie Liu/Alexandra Zak, Isa D’Amario-McShane/Karis Crabill and Emma Casaudoumecq/Laila Elkhoury for doubles 1 through 3, respectively. 

Bishop O’Dowd had decided to stack their doubles teams with their top players, so our singles girls didn’t face much resistance and cruised to easy wins: Anna won in 6-0, 6-2, Mirabel won in 6-0, 6-1, Audrey won in 6-0, 6-2 and Katie won in 6-1, 6-1. On the doubles side, our girls faced stiff resistance by O’Dowd’s line-up as expected:  Sophie/Alexandra lost in 0-6, 2-6, Isa/Karis lost in 3-6, 0-6 and Emma/Laila lost in 0-6, 1-6. With the four singles wins, the final score was 4-3 to the Bulls which secured them a semi-final berth in the NCS Championship.

Next up, on Saturday November 12, the Bulls faced a formidable competitor in Piedmont.  This match took place at the Golden Gate Tennis Center in San Francisco and was delayed for a couple of hours because of wet courts which made for a very long wait for some of our girls, in particular singles 1, 2 and doubles 1. The Bulls went with its strongest singles lineup (Anna, Mirabel, Audrey and Katie) but switched up the doubles line-up a bit with Sophie/Alexandra remaining in doubles 1, but Isa teaming up with Laila for doubles 2 and Karis joining Gaby Steele in doubles 3. Piedmont had decided to leave their top two players in singles but taking their next five players and stacking their doubles teams with them.  The matches started with Audrey and Katie dispatching their opponents in swift 6-0, 6-1 victories, giving the Bulls an early lead with 2 points. Piedmont quickly evened the score with wins in doubles 2 (6-0, 6-0) and doubles 3 (6-3, 6-0). 

The next point was offered by the Bulls’ Mirabel who beat her hard-hitting opponent in 6-3, 6-2. With the score 3-2, the attention turned to doubles 1 where Sophie and Alexandra were fighting hard in the second set having narrowly lost the first one 5-7. The score kept inching up in lockstep after Piedmont eliminated an early Bulls lead before Piedmont’s team pulled ahead for a second set 6-4 win, thereby evening the overall score to 3-3. Meanwhile, with the outcome relying on the last match in progress, a large crowd crowded around the court where the singles 1 face off was taking place. The crowd consisted not only of Bulls and Piedmont supporters, but also the University team who had won their own semi-final and was interested in seeing who they would be facing in the Championship final. Anna was down one set (lost the first one in 2-6) but clawing her way back into the match with a gritty performance in the second set by the time all eyes were on her and her opponent, Piedmont’s formidable Tanya Kononova, who according to hearsay hadn’t dropped a set all season. 

Anna won the second set 6-2 and carried that momentum into the third set which became an incredible battle of wills and showcased the best tennis we have seen all season. Being up 5-4 in the third set, Anna had one match point but lost it and then the score was soon 6-6, forcing a tie breaker which would determine the outcome of not only this match but the overall team match up. With the suspense unbearable and the crowd support for Anna getting louder by the minute, Anna rallied to a 7-1 tie break win securing herself the match win and her team a berth in the NCS Championship final. Talk about an amazing finish to a long day! Given the late time of day, the final was postponed until the following week so stay tuned – the Bulls are facing off University, on Thursday, November 17, 2022.