The Douglas High girls' tennis team made short work of the Galena Grizzlies Thursday afternoon to gain valuable traction in the race to the Sierra League title.
Douglas went 10-0 to start the match, gaining the victory before Galena could earn a point. From there, coach Roger Rusmisel was able to get much of the rest of his roster valuable playing time against a quality team as Douglas pushed ahead to the 13-5 final score.
"This was a nice bounce back after a difficult day at Reno on Tuesday," Rusmisel said. "It gives us momentum coming into the thick of our league schedule."
Douglas has tough matches against Incline (Tuesday), South Tahoe (Thursday) and Carson (Sept. 28) coming up.
Senior Amelia Ritger improved to 10-1 on the season and 119-5 in her career with a pair of wins Thursday while Kari TenBroeck and Sarah Weaver each swept their three sets to improve to 9-2 and 9-3 respectively on the season.
"Sarah had a big day," Rusmisel said. "She's showing that she will probably join Amelia and Kari as one of the seeded singles players in the regional tournament."
Katie Sawicki and Rochelle Seymour claimed a pair of wins to improve to 6-2 on the year as a doubles team.
"They continue to gain strength as a team and look like they may also earn a seeding."
Douglas' other wins on the day came from Morgan Richard, who won her first career match against Galena's Megan Fischer and the doubles teams of Zoe VanderByl and Kelly Sonnemann and Chelsea Fent and Amanda Caras.
BOYS
Douglas fell at Galena 12-6 Thursday afternoon.
"We started off strong, but in the end Galena's singles teams were just too dominant," Douglas coach Rod Smith said.
Smith noted the play of his two top doubles teams, Shane Patton-Grant Mason and Matt Thomas-Pat Johnson.
"Shane and Grant were outstanding," Smith said. "They dismantled each of Galena's tough doubles teams with relative ease. They were patient when they needed to be and they aggressively took over the net when the openings presented themselves.
"Matt and Pat are guys that will not give up. They are willing to grind out a victory no matter how much effort is required."
