Although Spanish Springs spoiled the Douglas girls' tennis team's perfect record at home, knocking the Tigers out of the Northern 4A Regional playoffs 13-5 Tuesday afternoon in Minden, Tiger freshman Amelia Ritger managed to escape with her unbeaten record still intact.
Barely.
Ritger, who put together the first undefeated regular season at the school in 20 years with a 24-0 slate this year, took on Spanish Springs No. 1 singles' player Kim Loyd in the first round.
From the outset, it was apparent that Ritger had her hands full. Loyd, after all, was the No. 3 seed in the High Desert League heading into last year's individual regional tournament and the No. 5 seed the year prior.
The duo battled to a 3-3 tie after six games and Loyd took the 4-3 lead with some held from a couple of nasty drop shots at the net and some big ground stroke points at the baseline.
Ritger, who has established herself as a player that simply forces her opponents to either beat her or make a mistake while trying, fought back in the next game, stealing it away on to short shots from Loyd after three dueces.
She began taking advantage of Loyd's attacks to the net in the ninth game, twice scoring on nice lobs to the baseline with Loyd in pursuit to take a 5-4 overall lead.
Loyd tied things back up at 5, making good use of the drop shot on her way to the win and took a 6-5 advantage after recovering from another Ritger lob to score three consecutive points to take the game.
Serving for the tie, Ritger gained an advantage with an early ace, caught Loyd on another lob and finished the game off with a nice overhead.
Ritger forced an error on the first point of the tiebreaker to take a quick lead, but Loyd scored the next four points and appeared ready to charge away with the win.
But Ritger served up an ace and forced two more errors for the tie.
Loyd aced Ritger on her next serve to take a 5-4 lead, but Ritger calmly worked her way through rallies on the next four three points.
Loyd put the ball into the net on each of the three rallies as Ritger walked away with the win.
She skated through her remaining matches on the day 6-2 and 6-1 to improve to 27-0 on the year and will most likely head into the regional individual tournament as the No. 1 seed out of the Sierra League.
Samantha Barns and the doubles team of Linsey Glass and Marissa Delgadillo had Douglas' only other wins on the day.
Sarah Barnhill and Lauren Seymour lost a narrow tiebreaker 7-6 (7-4) and Glass and Delgadillo came up just short in a 7-6 (7-3) loss. Madison VanderByl and Jackie Sunderland also had a close call, losing 6-4 in the first round.
Douglas ran into the buzzsaw that is the Galena tennis team Tuesday afternoon in South Reno as the Grizzlies picked up a 15-3 victory.
The doubles team of Andrew Soloman and Robert Shawhan knocked off Galena's top duo and won its second match 6-1 before dropping the finale 6-3.
Bill Sunderland had Douglas' only other point on the day, winning 7-5 in the third round.
Keagan Chipp struggled through three losses, a total larger in one afternoon than he had lost the entire season.
Chipp and Shawhan are expected to team up for the Northern 4A Regional Doubles Tournament next week and will be considered one of the favorites to qualify for state.
