OREGON – The Fremont Ross girls tennis team has never finished so high in the TRAC as the 2017 Lady Giants did Saturday.
Led by a third-place finish at No. 1 doubles by Gillian Gallagher and Lily Abdoo, the Lady Giants’ finished the league tournament in fourth place, the program’s highest finish since joining the league. The Lady Giants’ previous high finish was fifth place last year.
Toledo Central Catholic won the championship for a second year in a row.
Gallagher and Abdoo entered the tournament seeded third and won their first-round match, setting up a rematch with Toledo Central Catholic, who had defeated them on Thursday. Gallagher and Abdoo, however, lost once again to the Irish, sending them into the third-place match against Clay Saturday.
Gallagher and Abdoo won third place by knocking off Clay 6-4, 6-2.
“You can’t ask for anything more than what they did in the duel match,” coach Lisa Wolfe said. “Of course, you’d love it if they could change it up and make it to the championship, but it didn’t happen.
“They did what they could. They played good today,” Wolfe said. “They beat that Clay team previously in the season and you hope you don’t go backward. If you’re seeded third, come in third.”
The only other flight at which Ross finished in the same place it was seeded was No. 1 singles where Olivia Henry, seeded fifth, finished fifth.
At No. 2 singles, Mallory Hutton finished sixth after entering the tournament as the No. 5 seed.
No. 3 singles Berlin Swaisgood entered the bracket seeded fourth and came in fifth. She, however, turned in the performance of the day Saturday as she defeated Findlay’s Lauren Spaeth 6-2, 4-6, 6-2 in a match that lasted two and a half hours.
“She just hung in there,” Wolfe said of Swaisgood. “One game took 33 minutes, just one game. It was unbelievable. I wish I would have counted how many duces. They both fought hard for two and half hours.
“Berlin’s stamina throughout that match was very impressive.”
At No. 2 doubles, the team of Jurni Kidd and Sophia Biggins finished fifth after entering the tournament as the No. 4 seed.
With the TRAC tournament finished, the Lady Giants have three matches remaining in the regular season, starting Wednesday at Huron at 4 p.m.