By Troy Sparks
Correspondent
At the East Troy Division 2 sub-sectional on Monday, the Whitewater tennis team qualified one individual and one team for the sectional Wednesday at UW-Whitewater. Junior Sydney Treder was victorious at No. 1 singles, 6-1, 6-4 to advance. The No. 2 doubles team of super sophomores Odessa Sonn and Sophie Olson won two matches to move on.
“I was very pleased with how well we played today,” Whitewater coach Tim Nelson said. “We had some spots that had a tough day and others that started out a little slow. But, as a whole, we continued to show improvements.”
Treder was the No. 5 seed. The combination of Sonn and Olson (20-5) was the No. 3 seed in the No. 2 singles tournament. They lost their first set to the No. 6 seed from Jefferson in their opening match. However, they bounced back to take the next two sets, 6-1 and 6-2.
“They were just not moving well and were being outhustled by the Jefferson pair,” Nelson said. “After a one-sided discussion between (Sonn, Olson and myself) following the first set, they really picked things up and played some of their best tennis of the year for the rest of the day.”
Sonn and Olson pulled off the upset of the day in the elimination round. They faced the second-seeded Madison Edgewood doubles team after losing the first set, 6-2.
“They were playing well. They just needed to make a few adjustments,” Nelson said.
In the second set, Sonn and Olson did just that. They were much more aggressive and took the second set, 6-0. Sonn and Olson survived a challenging third set to win, 6-4.
Seventh-seeded sophomore Kaitlyn Partoll of Whitewater lost to second seed Jefferson sophomore Anna Kallsen, 6-2, 6-1. Senior Abby Gnatzig and junior Marissa Mueller, the No. 5 seed from Whitewater, lost to the No. 4 McFarland team, 6-3 and 6-1.
The event was the last Gnatzig, Hailey Lohmeier and Maggie Hough in their high school tennis careers.
“I really appreciate everything these three have done for the program,” Nelson said. “Maggie has had the sometimes-thankless job of playing No. 1 doubles the last two years. A three-year varsity player, Maggie played No. 3 doubles her sophomore year before making the jump to No. 1. Maggie had made incredible improvements in her tennis game, but more importantly, she has become a leader of our team that we will miss in the future.”
Whitewater finished fifth with 6 points.
