CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE MATCH<\/a><\/p>\nIt was a true team effort for Nixa (13-2 overall), who avenged a 6-3 regular season loss to Republic. On Thursday, the Lady Eagles flipped results in No. 2 doubles (Reese Morris and June Hronek) and No .4 singles (Hronek) after losing in those spots in the regular season meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cEach coach knows coming in that there are some matches you\u2019ll probably win, some matches you\u2019ll probably lose and then there are some 50-50s,\u201d Blansit said. \u201cWe won those 50-50s today. We had some other girls who didn\u2019t win today, but they played really well. We\u2019ve been playing our best tennis this last week and a half for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Antonuk, a hard-hitting lefthander, beat Schiman in the Nixa Invitational about three weeks ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere would be times I would forget she\u2019s a lefty and give her the easiest ball, and she would just kill me,\u201d Schiman said. \u201cThat got frustrating, but I just reminded myself to stay on the court and keep (the ball) to her backhand more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nixa will travel to Kansas City on Oct. 20 to play the District 6 winner \u2013 Lee\u2019s Summit North or Lee\u2019s Summit \u2013 in a Class 3 sectional match. The sectional winner will advance to the team state championships Oct. 30 in Springfield.<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s outcome gives Nixa its fourth district team title in five seasons. The Lady Eagles could earn the first final four berth in program history with a win next week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey play a lot of tennis in the summer,\u201d Blansit said of the key to Nixa\u2019s success. \u201cEvery one of these girls play out here at Cooper pretty much all summer and spring. We just reap the benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schiman is happy to have one more road trip with her teammates, which includes her former freshmen doubles partner, Reagan Watkins.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love these girls. I\u2019ve played and trained with them for so long,\u201d Schiman said. \u201cIt\u2019s just full circle right now for me and (Reagan) to play one more time together. To be able to extend our season together, it really means a lot to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Republic concludes one of the best seasons in program history at 16-2 overall. The Lady Tigers had won 14 straight matches entering Tuesday, including last week\u2019s COC-West championship tournament.<\/p>\n
Republic will graduate four seniors from its varsity flight.<\/p>\n
Nixa 5, Republic 4<\/p>\n
Singles<\/p>\n
McKenna Kembell (Nixa) def. Claire Norris 6-0, 6-1
2. Hannah Schiman (Nixa) def. Elaina Antonuk 6-3, 5-7 (10-8)
3. Abigail Bremer (Republic) def. Reese Morris 7-5, 7-5
4. June Hronek (Nixa) def. Marlee Vasquez 6-1, 6-2
5. Aubree Tinsley (Republic) def. Megan Windbacher 6-2, 6-1
6. Leighton Riffe (Republic) def. Reagan Watkins 6-1, 6-3<\/p>\n
Doubles<\/p>\n
McKenna Kembell\/Hannah Schiman (Nixa) def. Claire Norris\/Abigail Bremer 8-4
2. Reese Morris\/June Hronek (Nixa) def. Elaina Antonuk\/Marlee Vasquez 8-4
3. Aubree Tinsley\/Leighton Riff (Republic) def. Megan Windbacher\/Reagan Watkins 8-4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Kai Raymer (For OzarksSportsZone.com) All eyes were on Nixa senior Hannah Schiman and Republic freshman Elaina Antonuk.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-885124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}