Sports

Deerfield-Windsor tennis shocked at state

• The two-time defending champion Deerfield-Windsor tennis team is upset by Augusta Prep in the GISA Class AAA state semifinals.

Danny Aller

AUGUSTA — It wasn’t supposed to go down like this.

By this time today, Deerfield-Windsor tennis coach Meredith Gruhl and her two-time defending state champion girls were supposed to be celebrating among their colleagues and classmates the fact they had just accomplished something that no other sports team in DWS history — boys or girls — had ever done: Win three consecutive state championships.

But Wednesday, Augusta Prep made sure that ceremony never took place.

In a stunning upset, the Lady Cavaliers beat the Lady Knights, 3-2, in the Class AAA Final Four, avenging two consecutive losses to Deerfield — both of which came in the 2006 and 2007 AAA championship matches. Augusta went on to win the state title later that day, beating Stratford Academy in the same fashion, 3-2.

“It just wasn’t meant to be,” said Gruhl, whose team continued its back-and-forth rivalry with Prep, having crossed paths in either the AAA championship match or Final Four for the fifth consecutive season, with DWS now only holding a 3-2 edge following Wednesday’s loss. “We battle them every year, and we saw them at (state individuals tournament last week) and we knew we would need to shuffle our lineup to get the win. In the end, they were the better team this time, so I’m not surprised.”

What was surprising was the shuffling of the lineup by Gruhl just before the Final Four. In a purely strategic move, Gruhl took No. 3 singles player Lucey Kelly — the team’s only eighth-grader —and shifted her to No. 2 singles. She then took regular No. 2 singles Sarah Schatz and switched her with the team’s other Sarah -- Sarah Kitchens --- at No. 2 doubles, moving Kitchens to No. 3 singles.

That broke up the No. 2 doubles duo of Kitchens and Kelly Hoopes, who were fresh off an appearance in the GISA Class AAA State Individual Tournament’s Final Four.

When asked if she felt the move backfired in hindsight, Gruhl said flatly, “No. It would’ve played out the same. We knew we had to beef up our singles a bit, but they still just stepped up and played better tennis than us.”

Although, nothing was final until the last match --- ironically coming down to the newly formed No. 2 doubles team of Hoopes and Schatz.

Out first was Kelly, who lost, 6-0, 6-0 to Kathryn Peacock, while No. 1 singles star Sonya Belakhlef was right behind her, falling to Augusta’s Shikha Jerath, 6-4, 6-3, and putting the Lady Knights down 2-0 right off the bat.

But just as Gruhl had hoped, Kitchens picked up Deerfield’s first point at No. 3 singles, downing Peterson Peacock, 6-3, 6-3. And as expected, the No. 1 doubles duo of Taylor Hawke and Haley Fulford -- fresh off their second consecutive Class AAA State Individuals Championship, which they won last week at ABAC --- rolled their opponents Chelsey Whitehurst and Megha Jerath, 6-1, 6-0.

And then the crowd moved to the only match left at No. 2 doubles, with the team scored knotted at 2-2 and Augusta Prep ahead 1-0 in sets, having won the first, 6-4.

“I hate that it had to come down to them (and put that pressure on), but that’s just how it worked out,” Gruhl said. “Everyone came off the courts, we were 2-2, and that was the match to decide it.”

After finding themselves down, 5-4, in the second set with galleries full both schools’ fans doling out its share of cheers and moans as each team fought for every point, Hoopes and Schatz managed to tie it up at 5-5, sending the Lady Knights’ faithful “cheering and squalering like crazy,” said Gruhl.

But when Augusta Prep won the next two games to take the set, 7-5, as well as the match --- and the overall team win, 3-2 --- there were a host Lady Knights left with heavy hearts.

Maybe none more so than one of the team’s two seniors, Taylor Hawke.

“It is disappointing with it being my final year and all, but I have been on the team since eighth grade and accomplished a lot, so it’s not a complete loss even though I would’ve like to leave on top,” said Hawke of the six state titles -- three team, three individual --- she’s won in five seasons for Deerfied. “But when that final point hit and Augusta won, it took me a second but then I had to realize it was over.”

Hoopes is the team’s other senior, meaning Gruhl will have two spots to fill if she wants to get the Lady Knights back into contention for a run at next year’s championship.

And don’t think for a second that after the DWS lost Wednesday, she wasn’t already preparing her girls for redemption in 2009 the same way she was preparing them to defend when they won in 2007.

“The post-game speech this year was, ‘Rememer this feeling. What is feels like not to win it,’ “ Gruhl said she told her team. “ T’ake some time off and then get back on the court and practice. We have a year to get better.”

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