Making a Racket: Big tennis matchups this week
Some intriguing matchups across the Greater St. Helens Leagues this week starting with Tuesday’s (as in Oct. 6) with 3A GSHL leader Columbia River visiting 4A GSHL leader Union in a makeup match from earlier this season. I was told Monday that the Chieftains aren’t at full strength this week, but still you have two undefeated teams in league play going at it.
Columbia River senior Owen Carlson, playing No. 1 singles at Union. (Jeff Klein/The Columbian)
Owen Carlson, Columbia River’s No. 1 singles player, had a tough match on Friday against Skyview No. 1 Andrew Kabacy. Carlson won the first set 6-3, and Kabacy took the last two for the match 6-3, 6-4 in a 6-0 team non-league win for the Storm.
As for the Titans, they started last week with a second consecutive match decided by a total-games-won tiebreaker to beat Camas. That was followed by wins over Fort Vancouver (non-league), Heritage and Battle Ground to move Union to 11-0 overall going into the River match.
And what makes Union a scary-good team going forward is that the Titans have just one senior.
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Don’t miss: Union (8-0) visits Mountain View (7-1) on Friday in the second and final meeting between the two teams and the outcome could decide the 4A GSHL regular-season title. The first meeting went to Union in a 55-54 total-games-won tiebreaker. Doesn’t get much closer than that.
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2A GSHL: Hudson’s Bay (5-4 overall, 4-1 2A GSHL) visits R.A. Long (8-2, 5-0) on Wednesday in Longview. It’s the first of two meetings between the two as the Eagles try to repeat as league champs. The second meeting is next Wednesday (Oct. 14) at Bay in the league finale. But really, this first meeting is HUGE in determining the regular-season league champ.
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In the alumni corner for this week is Skyview grad Sammi Hampton, who began her collegiate career at Arizona State over the weekend.
The four-time WIAA state singles champion reached the quarterfinals of the Cal Nike Invitational at Berkeley, Calif.
Hampton won her first collegiate match over seventh-seeded Jana McCord of Saint Mary’s 1-6, 7-5, 6-2, and then beat Sybille Gauvain of San Jose State 6-1, 6-7 (3), 6-2.
In the quarterfinals, Hampton fell to top-seed Maegan Manasse of California 6-2, 6-0.
Hampton and Kassidy Jump reached the semifinals in doubles for ASU. They were beat by top-seed Manasse and Denise Starr 8-4.
More on the ASU women’s tennis team can be found by CLICKING HERE.
(If you know of other area grads playing collegiate tennis, shoot me an email at jeff.klein@columbian.com and I’ll follow up.)
