Three West Holmes tennis players remain after the fog finally clears
But then, just as the fog started to lift from Dover City Park, on the morning of Wednesday, Oct. 5, the Polens seemed to emerge from a haze – which saw them lose 10 of 12 games following a 6-1 victory in set one – mounting a comeback which would eventually earn them a 6-1, 1-6, 7-5 win over Moore and Kourie and a repeat trip to the DII East and Southeast combined District tournament, Saturday, Oct. 15 in Athens, along with Lady Knights number one singles player, and repeat Sectional champion, Rachel Nelson.
Polen and Polen got their motivation back up to win games six, seven and eight and even things up at four games apiece, but with Moore serving and Kourie putting away easy points with overhead smashes at the net in game nine, Dover temporarily stemmed the tide to go back in front 5-4.
"They started playing," explained ninth-year West Holmes head coach Jason Otto, after watching Brittany Polen serve to a 40-15 lead in game 10, before Kourie sent one all the way to the back fence on game-point, tying the third set again at 5-5. "I think we're a better team and I thought we lost that second set more than they took it from us. Then we just started dinking balls back either right to the net girl or right into the net, and that's not playing tennis.
"I told them, 'If you're going to lose, at least play.' They started doing that and that's all it took."
After Kacie returned the first point long in game 11, Jenna Polen barely cleared the net with a ground stroke, forcing Moore to hit into the net and make the score 0-30.
Jenna Polen smashed a shot that Kacie returned long on the next point, and Brittany Polen crushed an overhead shot to win the game during the next rally, as the Polens went back up 6-5 in the final set.
"When we were down 4-1, that's when we were like, 'Come on, we're not losing this,'" said Jenna Polen after serving to a 30-0 lead in game 12, before Moore and Kacie won two straight points to even things up at 30-30. "We're not ready to be done yet."
And they weren't, sealing the fourth-round victory – after a second-round bye, they beat the Cambridge pairing of Alyssa McClelland and Katie Cummings 6-0, 6-0 – and earning their second straight trip to Districts when Moore hit into the net to make the score 40-30 in game 12, and popped one up at the net, that Brittany Polen was able to crush down the middle for match point.
"I'm so excited for them," said West Holmes junior and 2010 DII State singles runner-up Rachel Nelson after beating up on Beaver Local senior Emily Dawson 6-1, 6-1 to repeat as Sectional champion – completing a run in which she knocked off Beaver Local junior Jordan Reinke, Claymont junior Olivia White, and Dover senior Hailey Rogers, all in 6-0, 6-0 fashion, to reach the final match. "They played really well in that doubles match and that'll make going to Districts 10 times better.
Nelson's win over Dawson had to make Hannah Frank and Marki Hogle feel at least a little better, after both West Holmes juniors were simply overmatched by the Beaver Local senior earlier in the tournament.
"She puts it away really easily," said Hogle, who lost to Dawson in the second round, on Tuesday, Oct. 4, following a marathon match in round one, during which she outlasted Dover freshman Sierra Sandy 6-1, 6-0, returning everything Sandy hit throughout the match until the Tornadoes player eventually made mistakes. "I just tried to lob it, but that didn't work.
"I really would like to be as good as her," added Hogle, who worked hard enough last off-season to move up from Otto's jayvee squad a year ago to the number three singles spot in 2011. "I'll work just as hard this summer as I did last summer and hopefully I'll do pretty decent next season."
Frank echoed Hogle's sentiment when she said, "She plays amazingly," talking about Dawson, who simply played at a level one or two steps above both Frank and Hogle, chasing her opponents all over the court, with crisply placed shots, before hitting impossible-to-reach winners off weak lob shots.
"She places her shots," said Frank, who beat Claymont sophomore Alyssa Hanlon 6-0, 6-0, in round two, and upset Dover first-singles player Marquette Hovan 6-1, 6-2, before falling to Dawson 6-0, 6-0 in the semi-final match. "I want to learn how to do that so I can beat somebody like she beat me."
Despite being overmatched by the senior from Beaver Local, the loss was perhaps even more difficult for Frank because of the new rules established this year between the East and Southeast Districts, which reduced the number of singles players and doubles teams advancing to Districts out of Dover from four to two.
"It was a little disappointing knowing that I could have gone if we still got four out," explained Frank, who reached Districts in 2010 as a doubles player, along with departed senior Rachel Koch. "But at the same time, it makes me think maybe I'm not as bad a singles player as I thought I was."
The rules change also worked against the Lady Knights unseeded second doubles pairing of Miranda Huebner and Chelsea Black, who beat Taylor Greathouse and Ciara Frank of East Liverpool 6-0, 6-0, in round two, and picked up a 6-1, 6-2 win over Beaver Local's fourth-seeded duo of Kristi Kline and Jesslyn Taylor, before falling to the second-seeded Dover pairing of Kacie Dryden and Jillian Brown 6-0, 6-2, in the semifinal round of the doubles bracket.
"It's a little bit upsetting," explained Black, after she and Huebner got out to a 2-1 lead in the second set against Dryden and Brown before dropping the next five games in a row. "But it's tougher this year, so it would have been a really good accomplishment to go."
Black will have one more season to try to achieve that really good accomplishment, but Huebner's tennis career at West Holmes is over following the semi-final loss at Dover, as she gets set to graduate next spring and looks forward to studying secondary-education in college.
"I've obviously gotten a lot better and it's been really fun," said Huebner after her final high school match. "I've kind of become a better person too.
"I'm going to miss playing with Chelsea and I'm going to miss tennis in general."
The Polen sisters will eventually have those same kinds of feelings…but not quite yet.
Playing in the Sectional championship match against Dryden and Brown, Polen and Polen bounced back from a 3-6 first-set loss to win the second set 6-2, before eventually falling behind in set number three, 2-5.
"I think when we were down 5-2 and we came back to 5-4 we were like, 'OK, we can do this, let's go,'" explained Jenna Polen after she and her nearly identical sister staged a nearly identical kind of comeback to force a third-set tiebreaker against Dryden and Brown in the title match.
But after racing out to a 4-0 lead in the tiebreaker, the Polens finally ran out of gas, dropping five straight points and eventually losing 6-8 to settle for their second straight Sectional runners-up finish and the number two seeding at Districts.
"I was hoping it would end like the first one, but it was pretty close, so we'll just have to work harder at Districts," said Jenna Polen.
"I want to win," added Brittany Polen. "So you just have to be into it, you have to be ready, you have to be pumped…"
And then, after a little pause, they both said in unison, "You just have to play tennis."
Published: October 5, 2011
