Vikings, Flashes denied region tennis championships

Published 10:30 am Friday, April 10, 2015

St. Aloysius’ Madison Willis hits a shot during a girls singles match Thursday against Greenville-St. Joe. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

St. Aloysius’ Madison Willis hits a shot during a girls singles match Thursday against Greenville-St. Joe. (Ernest Bowker/The Vicksburg Post)

Two region championship trophies were up for grabs Thursday at Halls Ferry Park.

Neither one remained in Warren County by the time night fell.

Clinton dropped a total of six games in four matches, and beat Warren Central 5-2 to win the Region 4-6A team championship.

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At the same time on the park’s other courts, Greenville-St. Joseph rolled over St. Aloysius 6-1 to win the Region 2-1A title.

Both Warren County schools still qualified for the playoffs, but will have considerably tougher roads than if they’d won on Thursday. Warren Central will likely open the Class 6A playoffs on the road at state power Tupelo, and St. Al will also play on the road at Tupelo Christian Prep.

“We’ve got a good team,” Warren Central coach Jeff Pilgrim said. “We go up to Tupelo, and we’ve got a chance. We’ve got a chance against anybody. Our boys are strong up and down the chart, and the girls are good as well. We can take them.”

The Vikings, though, couldn’t take out Clinton.

Saidepp Reddy, the defending Class 6A boys singles champion, beat Warren Central’s George Wilkerson 6-1, 6-0 to spearhead the rout. The Arrows lost a total of six games in the two singles matches and two girls doubles matches.

Warren Central’s points camed in mixed doubles and No. 2 boys doubles. Matthew Register and Avery Lynn Liddell beat Clinton’s Brandon Doyle and Breana Norton 6-0, 7-5, and William Wooten and Brent Styles defeated Hunter Martin and Brandon Zetterholm.

The most competitive match was in No. 1 boys doubles, where Clinton’s Eric Prather and Paul Pratt beat WC’s Joseph Jabour and Alex Velazquez 7-6, 6-4.

“We needed to win No. 1 boys doubles, and we double faulted too much and gave away too many points. It was the best, most competitive match I’ve seen all year with us,” Pilgrim said. “Our girls were just overmatched. We’re not nearly as experienced as their girls.”

St. Al coach Rick Shields felt the same way not just about his girls players, but his entire team.

Greenville-St. Joe, the defending Class 1A champion, only lost one set in its six match victories against the Flashes.

St. Al’s only point came in mixed doubles, where Adriane Eckstein and Luke Eckstein beat Craig Gardener and Andrea Wise 6-2, 6-4. Its only other set win was in the No. 1 girls doubles match. Greenville-St. Joe’s Katherine Anne Terracina and Sarah Hayek edged Lexa Baldizon and Elise Piazza 6-1, 2-6, 10-4.

“They’re a good team,” Shields said. “They started out getting beat by us a few years ago, then they won the state championship last year and they’ll probably win it again this year.”

About Ernest Bowker

Ernest Bowker is The Vicksburg Post's sports editor. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Post's sports staff since 1998, making him one of the longest-tenured reporters in the paper's 140-year history. The New Jersey native is a graduate of LSU. In his career, he has won more than 50 awards from the Mississippi Press Association and Associated Press for his coverage of local sports in Vicksburg.

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