SPRINGDALE -- Rogers girls tennis Coach Matt Fulton admitted there were times when he had trouble watching how the Class 6A state doubles championship match was transpiring.
The Lady Mounties team of Jenna Bohnert and Grace Lueders were pushed to the limit Wednesday before it claimed the doubles title with a 6-3, 2-6, 6-4 victory over the Bentonville West duo of Sarah Schneringer and Kristyn Tappana at the Springdale Har-Ber courts.
CLASS 6A
at Springdale Har-Ber
GIRLS TEAM RESULTS Bentonville West 9, Rogers 8, Mount St. Mary 7, Bentonville 6, Little Rock Central 2, Fort Smith Northside 2, Conway 1, Fayetteville 1
Singles
Semifinals
Ella Coleman, Bentonville, def. Kate Files, Fort Smith Northside, 6-4, 6-4.
Presley Southerland, Mount St. Mary, def. Cassie Cervantez, Bentonville West, 6-0, 6-4.
Championship
Southerland def. Coleman, 6-2, 6-1.
Doubles
Semifinals
Jenna Bohnert/Grace Lueders, Rogers, def. Jessica Hood/Ananya Vangoor, Bentonville West, 6-1, 6-0.
Sarah Schneringer/Kristyn Tappana, Bentonville West, def. Olivia Roberts/Shreya Kurichety, Bentonville, 6-2, 6-3.
Championship
Bohnert/Lueders def. Schneringer/Tappana, 6-3, 2-6, 6-4.
"It was really hard to watch before all four are extremely good players," Fulton said. "But their nerves -- you could tell they were getting to them. It was a match of errors and making good shots and went back and forth the entire time."
The two teams even had to endure a brief rain delay, which took place with Schneringer and Tappana leading 5-2 in the second set. The Bentonville West pair quickly closed out the second set after play resumed, but Bohnert and Lueders won the first two games and were a point away from a 3-0 cushion in the third set.
Schneringer and Tappana bounced back in a big way to win that game, as well as the next three for a 4-2 cushion. The West team was two points away from a 5-2 lead, then Bohnert and Lueders regrouped and eventually won the next four games, including the last two games going to deuce before winning.
"It was a roller-coaster the entire time," Fulton said. "Neither team gave up. I was proud to see our girls win, but congratulations to West. They did a fantastic job."
While Bentonville West didn't win the doubles title, the Lady Wolverines did claim the ultimate prize -- the school's first team state championship in its three-plus years of existence.
Bentonville West, which finished with nine points, added two to its total earlier in the day when Schneringer and Tappana earned a 6-2, 6-3 semifinal victory over Bentonville's team of Olivia Roberts and Shreya Kurichety. Rogers, thanks to its doubles championship, was runner-up with eight points, followed by Mount St. Mary with seven and Bentonville with six.
"It's something really special that's hard to describe," Bentonville West Coach Hunter Alexander said. "I knew we would be in the conversation after we won conference, and we would be in the hunt if we took care of the matches on day one. This is something we can really enjoy.
"You take three years ago, we had one girl that made it to state -- Sarah Schneringer. We had to default matches because we didn't have enough girls, and now we have a state championship in four years. That's huge and a testament to our girls to their passion and commitment to the program."
The singles division, meanwhile, provided Presley Southerland the opportunity to complete some unfinished business that she had started three years ago.
The Mount St. Mary senior, who was a state runner-up and overall runner-up as a freshman, returned with a flourish and won the title with a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Bentonville's Ella Coleman.
"I had to come and finish this off," Southerland said. "I am a senior now, and I wanted to win this thing one last time.
"I wanted to take last match one point at a time. Sometimes I look too far ahead and think 'I've got to win this one. It's state.' I just wanted to treat this one like any other match. It's no different than any other match. I just went out there and tried to stay relaxed."
Southerland, who is also an active player in junior tennis tournaments, suffered a back injury during her sophomore year, and then was home-schooled for the next two years. But the itch to play high school tennis again and achieve what she didn't do as a freshman compelled the return to Mount St. Mary.
"At the end of the my junior year, I knew I needed to go back to school," said Southerland, who plans to play next season at Arkansas. "I was missing out on so much. I missed my friends, and I missed high school tennis because this is so much fun being part of a team. This has been so much fun, and I love it."
Sports on 10/16/2019