MURFREESBORO - Friday at Old Fort Park Tennis Complex, was a perfect day for the Bandy ladies as GPS sophomore Maddox Bandy teamed with Jenna Thorstenson to win the D-II AA state doubles title and Maddox’s assistant coach and mom, Meg Bandy, now leaves the Bruiser program and heads to McCallie as the new varsity assistant coach under Eric Voges.
“It was great to watch Maddox and Jenna win and a good way for me to transition to my new position at McCallie,” said Meg who has one mother-daughter national gold ball and two silvers with Maddox.
For the doubles winners, who beat Baylor’s Lauren Carrelli-Presley Thomas, 6-3, 4-6 6-4, it was their second straight state crown.
The teams split sets and then Baylor broke GPS in the crucial seventh game for a 4-3 lead, but the defending champs then reeled off three straight games for the championship.
“We seem to play better when we are behind,” said senior Thorstenson. “For some reason we seem to relax and focus more when we are down."
The winners also lost the first set in the 2015 state semis against Hutchison before rallying for the victory.
“Winning this one (the second) was the toughest of the two titles, as everyone brought their best tennis against us this season, plus Presley and Lauren are excellent players and good friends,” Maddox stated.
Heading to Wimbledon: GPS coach Sue Bartlett and coach Bandy will take the Bruisers to England for 10 days of sight-seeing and plenty of Wimbledon tennis. Bartlett will travel ahead of the team as she is playing in the world team championship in Finland for Great Britain.
“For me traveling to Europe in June is perfect as I will play in the world tournament, have the players see some matches at Wimbledon and I get to spent time with my family,” Bartlett said.
Baylor’s Drew Hawkins Wins Second Singles Crown
Junior Drew Hawkins defeated Winslow Huth (Harpeth Hall), 6-2, 6-1 for her second straight D-II AA state singles crown. She has lost just one set (2015 semis) in six state tournament matches in two years.
Hixson Doubles Take Second in D-I A-AA
Seniors Alex Condra and Richard Vuong lost to Reed Bristow and Ethan Fussell, 6-3, 6-2 in the doubles finals. Condra also finished second in the D-I A-AA singles state tournament in 2015.
Condra and Vuong have been teammates since the seventh grade at Hixson Middle School and along with fellow seniors Carl Phillips (who played in the state singles) and Landon Goforth led the Wildcat varsity to four district and three region titles and two trips to the Spring Fling state tournament.
“We had a lot of close games today, but they won most of the big points,” said Condra the class valedictorian and will attend Emory in the fall. “We played well yesterday winning twice, including a win against Notre Dame in the quarters.”
Vuong said,” We really wanted to beat Notre Dame yesterday and our goal was to get to the finals and we did. I just played better yesterday, but the CAK guys played well to win today.”
Baylor Boys Doubles Take Second in D-II AA
Andres Carro and Frederick Danielson (MUS) defeated Baylor’s Patrick Toomey and Alex Cadrie in three sets for the D-II AA boys doubles titles.
The winners were serving at 5-4 in the third, but down 0-40 and then won four straight points for the state crown as MUS has now won the last four state doubles titles.
Contact B.B. Branton at william.branton@comcast.net