The Bluejay girls ended up the runner-up team in both quads meets they participated in last week.
They fell 6-3 to host Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln in Tuesday’s meet after dominating their opening matches.
The girls prevailed in both their opening matches in Friday’s round-robin Merrill Quad, defeating Ashland 4-3 and Ironwood 5-2.
But Rhinelander pulled out the tourney title with a 6-1 closer. The Hodags had defeated Wausau West by the same tally earlier this year.
“Rhinelander was a surprisingly tough opponent,” MHS coach Janet Thompson said. “Karina (Baacke) and Mandy (Vonderheid) pulled out a tough win to help us avoid a 7-0 sweep after a long first set and a super-tiebreaker.
“Against Ashland, Annie (DeBroux) fought long and hard to give us our only singles victory, but we won all of the doubles. Ironwood also gave us good singles matches, but our doubles teams were dominant.”
Baacke/Vonderheid pulled out a 3-6, 7-6 [1], 10-6 victory against the Hodags, and Jolene Ladewig/Morgan Wilde lost 7-6 [5], 6-3 at #1 doubles. Other losses came from Leah Johnson (6-1, 6-3), Chloe Krahn (6-1, 6-0), Therese Renaud (6-2, 6-4), Amanda Leitzke (6-1, 6-1) and Ashley Ollhoff/Victoria Gartmann (6-0, 6-1).
Rapids Quad
Merrill cruised to an 8-1 triumph over Wis Rapids Assumption and a 9-0 sweep over Green Bay East in the first two extended team rounds of the Rapids’ event.
But Lincoln took a 6-3 match from the Bluejays girls to lck down first place.
“Lincoln proved to be a strong team,” Thompson said. “A few matches with them were very close. Two of them ended in 10-point tiebreakers.”
Leitzke (6-4, 6-0), Ladewig/Wilde (6-3, 7-5) and Morgan Thomson/Megan Smith (6-0, 6-2) pulled out the wins versus Rapids. Johnson (6-0, 6-4), DeBroux (6-2, 6-2), Renaud (6-0, 6-2), Krahn (2-6, 6-0, 7-10), Baacke/Vonderheid (7-5, 6-4) and Ollhoff/Laura Reimann (4-6, 6-1, 11-9) were defeated.
The East sweep was paced by Johnson (7-5, 6-0), DeBroux (6-3, 6-1), Renaud (6-3, 6-3), Krahn (6-2, 6-2), Leitzke (6-2, 6-0), Ladewig/Wilde (6-0, 6-2), Baacke/Vonderheid (6-2, 6-), Ollhoff/Reimann (6-1, 6-0) and Gartmann/Thompson (6-2, 6-0).
Victorious against Assumption were DeBroux (6-1, 6-0), Renaud (6-3, 6-0), Krahn (6-0, 6-0), Sarah Lentz (6-0, 6-0), Ladewig/Wilde (6-0, 6-1), Baacke/Vonderheid (6-0, 6-0), Ollhoff/Reimann (6-0, 6-0) and Thompson/Gartmann (6-0, 6-0). Johnson was toppled 1-6, 7-5, 14-12.
“We’re 8-7 overall and I feel we’ve prepared well for our upcoming Wisconsin Valley Conference season,” Thompson said. “We’ve played a lot of matches against good teams.”