Doubles sweep not enough for Comets against Bulldogs

By John Burbridge
sports@charlescitypress.com
CHARLES CITY — The first half of Charles City’s home tennis match against Hampton-Dumont on Monday went fairly well for the Comets

Playing double matches first, Charles City swept the slate with the No. 1 team of Jodie Sindlinger and Amy Boggess and the No. 2 team of Kayla Kellogg and Taylor Walters winning in straight sets, and the No. 3 team of Lauren Connell and Jacie Wink winning a third set super-tiebreaker.

But Connell injured her ankle during the doubles match and had to forfeit her subsequent No. 5 singles match against Erin Plagge.

Needing to win at least two of the remaining five singles matches to seal the victory, Charles City got one when No. 2 Boggess defeated Bianca Tielke in straight sets (6-1, 6-1). But the needed second singles win proved to be elusive as the Bulldogs won the other four matches — three of them by super-tiebreaker.

In the No. 3 singles match, Kellogg was down 5-1 in the first set against Jadin Beyer before coming back to win 7-5. Beyer won the tiebreaker in the second set to force the super-tiebreaker, and was up 9-5 before Kellogg scored four-straight points to force deuce.

After a series of add-ins, add-outs with several more deuces in between, Beyer finally won the super-tiebreaker 16-14.

With Tristan Rew defeating Sindlinger with a 10-5 super-tiebreaker in the No. 1 singles match, and Briana Grover defeating Walters in straight sets to claim the No. 4 singles match, it all came down to the No. 6 singles match between Wink and Bulldog freshman Faith Grover.

Grover won the first set 6-2 before Wink won the second 7-6 and was up 5-3 in the super-tiebreaker. Grover managed to record several aces with her two-steps-to-the-baseline first serve to eventually overcome the deficit on way to winning the decisive tiebreaker 10-7.