Clare Heckert takes No. 2 singles title; team finishes regular season with 7-0 win over Comets
By Dan Truttschel
Correspondent
The Big Foot-Williams Bay girls tennis team entered last week’s Rock Valley Conference Meet firmly in third place.
And by the time the settled at the end of the meet, that’s just where the Chiefs finished.
Freshman Clare Heckert won the No. 2 singles title to lead the Chiefs to third with 19 points, good behind East Troy and Whitewater, which tied for the tournament title with 25 points.
Placing behind the Chiefs were Jefferson with 18 points, McFarland with 13 and Edgerton with 12.
East Troy won the overall title, based on the tournament and dual meets, with 19 points, followed by Whitewater with 17, Big Foot with 12, McFarland Jefferson with six and Edgerton with zero.
The highlight in last week’s meet at UW-Whitewater was Clare Heckert’s run to the No. 2 singles crown.
After a first-round bye, she beat East Troy’s Anna Stephen 7-5, 6-3, followed by a 6-2, 6-2 win over Jefferson’s Morgan Graf in the title matchup.
The Chiefs also had one second-, one third-, two fourth- and two fifth-place finishes.
Big Foot’s No. 3 doubles duo of senior Alyssa Nor and sophomore Claire Beyers moved into the finals, where the lost 3-6, 1-6 to the East Troy tandem of Kelly Griffa and Allison Slusar.
Nor-Beyers beat Edgerton 6-4, 7-6 (2), (10-3) in the first round, followed by a 7-5, 0-6, (11-9) win over Whitewater in the semifinals.
Finishing third was the No. 1 doubles team of senior Maddie Palmer and junior Izzy Klesmith, while finishing fourth were junior Meredith Heckert at No. 1 singles and junior Sonja Ericson at No. 4.
Palmer-Klesmith, the No. 2 seed, had a first-round bye, before they fell 3-6, 4-6 to Edgerton. They bounced back to beat the Jefferson duo 6-3, 6-4 in the third-place matchup.
Heckert was the top seed heading into the tournament, but aggravated an injury in a 7-5, 4-6 (8-10) loss to Whitewater’s Milena Maroske and missed the rest of the tournament.
Ericson advanced into the second round with a 6-3, 6-1 win over Jefferson, but fell 0-6, 1-6 to Whitewater for her first loss of the meet. In the third-place matchup, she fell 2-6, 4-6 to East Troy.
Fifth-place finishes were turned in by junior Hannah Schmidt at No. 3 singles and senior Lexi Zabrouski and junior Sam Hartwig at No. 2 doubles.
Big Foot opens postseason play Monday morning when it competes in a WIAA Division 2 subsectional at East Troy. The sectional meet is set for Wednesday, Oct. 5, at UW-Whitewater, followed by the state tournament, beginning Oct. 13 at the Nielsen Tennis Stadium, Madison.
Chiefs blank Comets
Big Foot closed out its regular season Monday night with a 7-0 nonconference win over Delavan-Darien.
Picking up victories were Clare Heckert at No. 1 singles, 6-0, 6-0; Schmidt at No. 2, 6-2, 7-5; Ericson at No. 3, 6-0, 6-0; Sarah Canche at No. 4, 6-3, 6-3; Palmer-Klesmith at No. 1 doubles, 6-0, 6-0; Zabrouski-Hartwig at No. 2, 6-3, 6-1; and Nor-Beyers at No. 3, 6-0, 6-1.
