Sports

State champs!

• For the second year in a row, the Deerfield doubles team of Taylor Hawke and Haley Fulford win the GISA Class AAA state title.

Derek Barichello

TIFTON — Deerfield-Windsor hopes Monday’s GISA AAA State Individuals Tournament was a bit of foreshadowing.

Just as the DWS girls hope to come away three-time champions in the team tournament on April 28 in Augusta, its No. 1 doubles duo of Haley Fulford and Taylor Hawke won their second consecutive state title Monday at ABAC, this time without dropping a set in the entire tournament.

“This is my senior year,” said Hawke, who recorded her fourth individual title, second with the junior Fulford as her teammate. “This was my last one, so it was nice to go out on top.”

Added Fulford about the win: "Defending a state championship is not as easy as it sounds. It meant a lot to win this one for Taylor since she's a senior. I'm going to miss her but we still have the team competition.”

Fulford and Hawke, who beat the team from First Presbyterian in the final match, weren’t the only ones with a chance to bring a state title back to Southwest Georgia on Monday.

Their Lady Knights teammates Kelly Hoopes and Sarah Kitchen lost in two sets in the Final Four — preventing an all-DWS final like they had hoped — while the Southland Academy boys doubles team of Tripp Parker and Justin Davis suffered the same result.

But the day was all about Fulford and Hawke, who swept through the tournament in convincing fashion.

Their championship bid, however, did not come without some excitement.

After having defeated First Presbyterian’s No. 1 doubles team of Kristen and Julie Allen earlier in the year and in last year’s tournament, Fulford and Hawke were tied 3-3 on Monday in the first set of the title match, before rallying to win three straight games to take the first set, 6-3, then storming out to win the second set, 6-0.

“When it was (3-3), it was nerve racking,” Hawke said. “I had to get my head back into the game and tell myself, ‘We played them before; we know how to beat them.’ ”

To get to the championship, Fulford and Hawke defeated Stratford Academy’s Lindsey and Holly Stephens. 6-0, 6-1, in the semifinals.

As for Hoopes and Kitchen, who were playing in their first state tournament Final Four as a doubles team, they found themselves in a tight first set with the Allen sisters as well, though this time the outcome would not favor DWS.

Hoopes and Kitchen lost the first set, 7-5, and then dropped the second set, 6-0.

“We just fell apart,” Hoopes said. “We couldn’t get anything to work out for us in the second set.”

Also playing in their first semifinals, Southland’s boys team of Parker and Davis left Tifton on Monday with some regrets.

The duo fell in two sets, 6-3, 6-4, to the eventual champion, Augusta Prep’s Robert Yu and Ajay Sethi in the semifinals.

The biggest regret?

They could’ve done better.

“I think they had a little more experience than us,” Davis said. “We didn’t play our best tennis. We were tight.”

But there’s some good news — Parker and Davis will not have to wait long for revenge.

Southland, which advanced to the GISA AAA State Tournament as a team, will square off against Augusta Prep in the opening round of that tournament April 28 in Augusta, meaning the two doubles teams will once again lock horns.

“We’re going to make a few adjustments and come out a little looser,” Davis said. “I think we can get them.”

That same team outlook goes for Deerfield’s girl, which will now shift its gears to the team tournament and trying to become the first sports team — girls or boys — in DWS history to win three state championships in a row.

And that’s the final goal for Meredith Gruhl’s DWS teams.

“I just let the individuals be the individuals and do their thing, which Haley and Taylor did once again,” Gruhl said. “Now it’s time to go out and get a team title.”

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