UPDATE: After press time, Hanna and Abercrombie advanced with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Peaster and will face Sonora for the regional title Friday Morning at 9 a.m.
Riddle fell to Alexander 6-3, 6-3 and will play in the third-place match Friday morning in hopes of a play-back match. Branch and Kozlikova fell in their regional semi to Reagan County but will play in the third-place match on Friday in hopes of a playback.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad day for perennial tennis power Jim Ned, which took 10 players into the Region I-3A tournament Thursday at Rose Park Tennis Center.
By press time, three Jim Ned entries had reached the semifinal round, including Kelsey Riddle in girls singles, Jolie Branch and Klara Kozlikova in girls doubles and Jackson Hanna and Paige Abercrombie in mixed doubles.
Riddle, who advanced with wins over Jennifer Morales of Crane (6-0, 6-0) and Rachel Patrick of Nocona (6-2, 6-1) was set to face Wall’s Abby Alexander in one semifinal. Abby Sykes of Millsap was awaiting the winner of Sierra Martinez (Reagan County) and Emily Delafuentes (Brady) in the other semi.
“Kelsey Riddle just had a really solid performance in her first two matches,” coach Arnett McClure said. “She’s looking good, hitting on all cylinders.”
Branch, along with Kozlikova, a foreign exchange student from the Czech Republic, reached the semifinals with a relative ease, claiming a 6-2, 6-1 win over Julie Smith and Sarah Butcher of Shallowater.
The Jim Ned duo was set to face either Ana DeLeon and Chelsie Tompkins of Bowie or Isabel Holland and Jodie Perez of Reagan County.
On the other side of the bracket, Early’s Jaden and Katie Satterlee pushed to the regional semifinals with consecutive straight set wins.
“Our girls came out and played solid from start to finish,” McClure said. “They played a very good Shallowater team and I’m really proud of the way they played.”
Additional Big Country athletes to see action in the I-3A tournament included Ballinger’s Ty Sensabaugh, who had advanced to the boys singles semfiinals at press time with a quarterfinal win over Shallowater’s Brett Homer (6-1, 6-2).
Jim Ned’s Hudson Payne, Early’s Alex Dobson and Colorado City’s Jay Patel all fell in the first round of boys singles, as did Clyde’s Elizabeth Dugan in girls singles bracket.
The Big Country had four boys doubles teams in the fray, — Dylan Bryant and Matt Stewart, along with Alex Rosales and Tyler Heath of Jim Ned, Matthew Stewart and Joey Amador of Coleman and Payden Eason and Casey Ketterhagen of Bangs. All fell in their opening matches.
In mixed doubles, the Big Country teams of Noah Stewart and Emily Croft (Coleman) and Wade Carter and Cameron Hill (Early) also fell in their openers.
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