Ruby Ellison advanced in singles after a great showing the previous week when she went into the sub-section tournament unseeded and upset the #6, #3 and #5 seeds, respectively to earn herself a #3 seed into this weekend's section tournament.  Ruby peeked at the right time this season as she steadily improved and became more aggressive in the final weeks of the season leading into playoffs.  She drew the #2 seed from the south from St. Cloud Tech, Paige Tarrolly.  The past two seasons, Paige and her doubles partner have knocked the Otters (Ashtyn Lill/Mia Marsh, Ashtyn Lill/Leila Nasri) out of the section tournament and this season she kept her streak alive, defeating Ruby 6-1, 6-1.  Paige is a very skilled player and brought her "A" game to the court on Saturday.  Ruby did a great job of matching pace and playing tough in each game, but Paige was able to play big points well and capitalize on any short ball she saw, keeping Ruby on the defensive.  Paige went on to win the tournament without dropping a set and is now headed to the state tournament.  Ruby gained some great court experience and definitely has nothing to hang her head about.  Seeing the level of play at the section tournament is always good for our players to see what we are striving for as we continue to work to improve. 

Our doubles team of Hattie Fullhart and Ashtyn Lill also drew a team from St. Cloud Tech.  The #4 seeded team from Fergus Falls faced the #1 seeded duo of Isabelle Anderson and Abby Brown.  We knew going into the match that it wouldn't be easy for our girls to win this match against the top seed, but we also knew that it was possible.  Ashtyn and Hattie had a great regular season, going 18-3 as our top doubles duo and have been playing particularly well as of late.  The girls started the match playing kind of flat in the first set.  They weren't visibly nervous or making a ton of mistakes, but just weren't as clean and aggressive as we tend to see from them.  Much of this can be attributed to the good play of their opponents.  As a result of this slow start, the pair found themselves dropping the first 6-3 and down 5-1 in the second set.  Something clicked in their heads at this point and they began swinging much more freely and playing much cleaner tennis.  They earned Hattie's service game to bring the score to 2-5 in the second set.  At the changeover, we talked about not overdoing anything, but rather just keeping the ball in play as long as they can in each point, until they start to gain confidence and really 'feel' their ground strokes.  This approach really started to work for them as they fought off three match points in the next St. Cloud service game and broke their serve.  With each point, they seemed to gain confidence and their game picked up greatly in all aspects.  Ashtyn served at 3-5 and the girls easily held.  Ashtyn served particularly well all match on Saturday.  Both girls found their baseline strokes and began hitting with much more confidence.  They adapted the mindset that they had nothing to lose, so they may as well have fun and just go for it.  The girls kept battling and grinding to find themselves up 6-5 and setting the stage for one heck of a comeback.  Tech held serve at 5-6 after dropping five straight games and forced a tiebreak to 7 to determine the set.  The tiebreak was a battle from both sides with both teams playing smart and clean.  Throughout the extended tiebreak, the Otters had at least one set point and fought off four more match points before finally dropping the breaker 11-9.  It was quite a dramatic finish.  It wasn't what we'd hoped for, but St. Cloud really earned it on Saturday, defeating the Otters 6-3, 7-6(11-9).   

Of course we always want a win, but we just fell short today.  We did gain positive experiences at this level and have a clear vision of what to strive for.  Our players also had teammates around to watch, cheer and take in the atmosphere, which will only make them work harder to get there one day too.  Saturday concluded Otter tennis for the fall of 2023.  Our team made a great run going 15-5 and many girls found much individual success along the way.  As we say every year, we are definitely going to miss our seniors a ton.  We know we have openings on our varsity to be earned for next season and we're excited to see what our hard working girls can do between now and then.