It couldn't have gotten much closer, but with the match hanging in the balance, Douglas senior girls' tennis captain Samantha Barns came through in a huge way for the Tigers in their regular-season finale Thursday afternoon.
Barns clawed her way to a 6-4 victory over South Tahoe's Lindsey Martin in the final match of the afternoon, giving Douglas the 10-8 win over the Vikings and the No. 2 seed in the Sierra League heading into next week's Northern 4A Regional team playoffs.
Barns won all three of her matches on the day, each being a nailbiter as she took down Tahoe's No. 1 player Jenny Wiseman 7-6 in a tiebreaker and beat No. 3 Rebecca Roberts 7-5.
Freshman Amelia Ritger completed a spotless rookie year, winning her three sets (and all 18 of her games for that matter) to complete a 24-0 record on the year.
With the wins, she became the first tennis player at Douglas High to complete an undefeated regular season since 1987 when Lisa Chacon went 44-0 as a sophomore.
Ritger also became the school's first freshman to post an undefeated regular season.
Cesarina Ceglia picked up two big wins as well, beat Roberts 7-5 and Wiseman 6-3, giving Douglas eight of its 10 points in the singles bracket alone.
On the doubles side, the teams of Sarah Barnhill and Lauren Seymour and Linsey Glass and Marissa Delgadillo each beat Hannah Kropf and Brooke Borges to give Douglas its only doubles points of the day.
Douglas ran its record to 8-2 overall and 7-1 in Sierra League play, marking its best league season as a team since the Sierra League was created.
The Tigers will host Spanish Springs next week in the first round of the team playoffs.
