LEXINGTON — Corbin’s run at a state championship fell one game short as the girls’ tennis team dropped a 3-0 decision to Sacred Heart in the KHSAA Girls’ Team Tennis State Tournament on Tuesday.
Corbin dropped a 3-0 decision which included Olivia McArthur and MaryAlice McVey losing 6-0, 6-0 to Sacred Heart’s Avery Voss and Claire Rueff, Haley Carrie and Tory Canady’s 6-0, 6-0 loss to Abby Goldentul and Natalie Wagner, and Katherine Morton’s 6-0, 6-0 loss to Sanham Keishnani.
Isabella Lopez’s match (losing 3-6, 1-2, to defending singles state champion Ellie Hammond), and Lindsay Jones’ match (losing 0-6, 0-0 to Lilah Shallcross) did not finish due to not being needed to decide the final outcome.
“I’m still just trying to soak it all in and that’s exactly what I told the girls to do — to stop and appreciate the historic moment,” Corbin coach Chris Jones said. “It was great having former coach Donnie Head come up and support us and we were talking about how he had a few teams get to the semifinals, but never the championship match. It’s just all still surreal.
“These girls have worked so very hard all year for this one moment and they deserve all the recognition,” he added. “It was a tough tournament for us in doubles for sure, but when you get to this level, every match is a dog fight. Our doubles teams fought hard but came up a little short. You just never know who’s going to step up when your team is this deep and in this tournament our singles players really dug deep and came through for us. Bella and Katie got past McCracken in the semis pretty handily even though we had lower UTR scores, while Lindsay had to battle back from a set down to take her match in a super tiebreaker.
“We gave it our all in the championship matches, but we just got over powered by a very good Sacred Heart Academy team,” Jones continued. “I couldn’t be any more proud of this group. It’s been a phenomenal run for sure.”
