Lady Pirate tennis sweeps 2 matches

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WHEELERSBURG — The Wheelersburg High School girls tennis team continues to sweep through the non-league competition.

That’s because, bouncing back following a hard-fought 4-1 Southern Ohio Conference-opening loss at Waverly last Thursday, the Lady Pirates completed a two-match sweep in a three-day span, blanking both host Hillsboro on Saturday and Ironton on Tuesday by 5-0 counts.

The four-day three-match gauntlet gave the Lady Pirates a 3-1 record, as Wheelersburg is the two-time defending SOC champion —as it also captured consecutive conference championships from 2015 thru 2018.

Against Hillsboro, the Lady Pirates allowed only three combined set points in the three singles matches —and only six in the pair of doubles contests.

All five Wheelersburg wins came courtesy of straight-set sweeps.

Emma Brinkman and Aby Jones at first doubles (6-1 and 6-2), and Avery Lowery and Brooklyn Howard at second doubles (6-0 and 6-3), had sweeps — as did first singles Maria Nolan (6-0 and 6-1), second singles Emily Janney (6-1 and 6-1), and third singles Jocalynn Conley (6-0 and 6-0).

Against Ironton, the Lady Pirates had much more challenging matches, but still secured the 5-0 sweep —thanks largely to second singles Janney outlasting Ironton’s Kendall Pauley in a three-set marathon.

Janney won the first set 6-0, Pauley prevailed in the second set 6-1, and Janney won the third set 6-3.

Nolan, at first singles, netted a 7-5 and 6-3 straight-sets sweep over Ironton’s Rachel Gillespie —as Conley won at third singles over Ironton’s Isabel Morgan 6-4 and 6-1.

At first doubles, Brinkman and Jones defeated Annika McCown and Hannah Leith 6-2 and 6-0, as Lowery and Howard had a forfeit triumph over the Fighting Tigers at second doubles.

As for the Waverly Tigers, the Lady Pirates’ only victory against them on Thursday was by the senior Janney —a 6-2 and 6-0 second-singles victor over Greenlee Thacker.

Waverly’s only straight-set sweep was at third singles —as Kaelyn Lin landed a 6-3 and 6-1 win over Conley.

The Lady Pirates pushed the Lady Tigers to the three-set limits in the other three matches, including at second doubles, where Waverly’s Krittika Kaver and Kyndra Barker bested Lowery and Howard 6-2, 5-7 and a whopping 10-7 with a tiebreaker in that third set.

At first doubles, Sophie Thomas and Madison Davis defeated Jones and Brinkman by a three-set score of 6-4, 4-6 and 6-4.

At first singles, Blossom Smith scored a 3-6, 6-2 and 6-4 victory over Nolan.

The Lady Pirates return to the road, and return to SOC action, on Thursday at Valley.

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