Oct. 31—The chilly Halloween afternoon at Cooper Tennis Complex in Springfield began with Thomas Jefferson falling behind 3-0 after Ladue Horton Watkins earned a victory in each doubles match.
Ladue went on to take three singles matches before officials called the contest after the 5-0 mercy rule. The Rams technically won 6-0 by matches finished.
“We got to see players from all three of these teams (semifinals teams) last week and knew what we were going to be up against,” TJ head coach Tom Brumfield said. “We just wanted to come up here and compete as good as we can and see what happens. I thought they did a great job.”
The first of those was an 8-1 victory in No. 1 doubles as Kayla Chan and Anya Calfee topped TJ’s Jeanna Jeyaraj and Mayson Solum. Emma Jin and Jenna Song then defeated Kyla and Esther Yang 8-2 in No. 2 doubles.
That score can be a little deceiving as the Yang sisters battled closely and early on the score was even at 2-2. During that fifth point, TJ held an advantage late and Ladue’s duo would always respond to bring it to a tie or “deuce” as its referred to. Then it would go back to advantage TJ. Then back to deuce.
“It was back-and-forth. It was a lot closer than the score came out to be,” Brumfield said.
Ladue even earned the advantage once but TJ brought it back even. Finally, the Rams’ Song and Jin were able to claim a 3-2 lead and ran away from there.
“I saw a group of girls that were just motivated to win the match,” Ladue head coach Genie Hong said. “It started this morning at 10 o’clock when we were warming up. They were really zoned in.”
That showed as her pair in No. 3 doubles claimed an 8-5 victory to grab that early 3-0 advantage. TJ’s Warda Morsy and Madelyn Ro played close with Adela Haines and Madeline Awad before falling short.
The success continued into singles play as Chan — the Class 2 state champion in individual play — topped Jeyaraj 6-0, 6-0 in No. 1 singles. Kyla Yang fell to Calfee in No. 2 singles by the same score. Then Solum had tried to rally back in No. 4 singles after dropping the first set 6-0. She trailed 5-2 in the second set but lost 6-2 eventually.
No. 3 singles was suspended with Esther Yang behind Jin 2-0 after falling in the opening set 6-0. Morsy led Awad 6-5 in their first set before the contest was decided. Ro was trailing Haines in the second set 2-1 after dropping the first set 6-1.
Thomas Jefferson is now 12-1 on the year and will face MICDS (11-7), which lost 5-3 to Barstow Thursday. Barstow (8-5) moves on to face Ladue (14-3) in the state title match. Both contests are set for noon.
Regardless of tomorrow’s results, Brumfield said he is happy with his team’s work to get back to another Final Four.
“They’ve been very special (last two seasons). We’ve come a long way in the girls’ program since I started. We were lucky to get six girls out to compete and now to be here, in Class 2, it’s special,” he said.
Ladue is trying to repeat as Class 2 champions under a new head coach.
“It’s a lot of pressure. It’s actually my first season as the girls’ head coach. The previous coach had done the work so I feel like I’m just riding on her coattails,” Hong said. “They’re just a really great group of girls. I’m excited to see what they can do tomorrow.”
