DUBOIS — The DuBois girls tennis team brought itself one step closer to the possibility of a state tournament berth on Tuesday, edging District 8’s Taylor Allderdice by a 3-2 margin in the District 8/9 subregional final.
The match was a thrilling one — and just about as close as one could be. Four of the five individual matches demanded a third set to finish them out, and one — which proved to be the pivotal team point for DuBois’ win — even went to a third-set tiebreaker.
That pivotal match was the No. 2 doubles showdown between DuBois’ pairing of Maya Guthridge and Avery Sheloski and the team from Taylor Allderdice consisting of Jay Berry and Maggie Merchant.
Guthridge and Sheloski won the first game of the first set and never looked back, splitting each of the next two pairs of games for leads of 2-1, 3-2 and 4-3 before taking the final two games for a 6-3 first-set victory.
Undeterred by that first-set loss, though, Berry and Merchant fired right back to take a back-and-forth second set. DuBois once again won the first game, but soon found themselves trailing 2-1.
DuBois responded to open up a 4-3 advantage, but this time it was Allderdice finishing strong, as they won the final three games for a 6-4 victory to even the match at one set per side.
The third set was close throughout, as well. DuBois trailed 2-1 before taking a 3-2 lead, then holding leads of 4-3 and 5-4 at the changeovers. Allderdice won the next two games to win the race to six, but DuBois won the final one to tie it 6-6 and force a seven-point tiebreaker to determine the match.
In the race to seven, DuBois got the first six points thanks to a break of serve, a nice scramble and a winner by Guthridge to hold on her serve, a Sheloski smash at the net, a deep baseline return by Sheloski that proved unreturnable and a nice play at the net to make it 6-0.
The next two points went to Allderdice, but a double fault on the next serve sealed the 7-3 tiebreaker win for DuBois.
Guthridge and Sheloski were unaware until they came off the court — right around the time as the other remaining singles matches ended — that their team point had been the one that gave DuBois its third, pushing it over the edge. Taylor Allderdice got the final two wins in singles, but it was too little, too late.
DuBois’ first team point came in convincing fashion from Kendall Lashinsky at No. 2 singles, as she was the only one for either team to win in straight sets, battling through long, close games with her Cicilia Starr.
Lashinsky opened up a 4-1 lead in the first set before Starr got her second game of the set, but that proved to be the last one as Lashinsky closed it out to win it 6-2. In the second set, Starr won the first to put Lashinksy behind, but she rattled off the next four games, then went on to win by the same 6-2 margin to secure the match’s first point.
The second team point for DuBois came through the hard work of the first doubles pairing of Megan Orzechowski and Cameron Sarick against Taylor Allderdice’s Myla Halasz and Aya Tetrault.
Orzechowski and Sarick breezed through the first set, winning the first five games and going on to take it 6-1, but Taylor Allderdice battled back in a big way, opening up an early lead in the second set and winning it 6-2.
The third set was a close one, but DuBois never trailed, as Orzechowski and Sarick won the first game, then the teams alternated games with DuBois holding leads of 2-1, 3-2 and 4-3 before a hold to make it 5-3 and a break to close it out, 6-3.
Top singles was a battle from the start between DuBois senior Sonia Parekh and Allderdice sophomore Evelyn Lewis, with Parekh winning the first set 6-3, only to see Lewis answer by winning the second by the same margin. In the third-and-deciding set, Lewis jumped out to a 3-0 lead and went on to win 6-2.
Allderdice’s other point came at third singles in another match that went three sets between DuBois’ Alyssa Catalano and Emme Anish. Anish won the first set 6-3, but Catalano fought her way to a 7-5 second-set win to even the score. The deciding set ended the same way the first did, 6-3 in Anish’s favor, giving Allderdice its second team point.