Five in a row

Meredith Dirksen breezed through her match and Brenna Bailey was done just a few minutes later.

Meanwhile Lilly Johnson played the longest first set.

Then she shifted into high gear.

Johnson zipped through her second set and locked up the Jay County High School girls tennis team’s fifth consecutive sectional championship just moments before the Patriot No. 1 doubles team also earned a victory in a 4-1 triumph over the Winchester Golden Falcons.

“It feels really good,” said Dirksen, a senior. “We worked hard all season for this.”

The Patriots advanced to the sectional title match with a shutout of Union City on Thursday while Winchester beat Randolph Southern 4-1. (The start of the tournament was postponed from Tuesday because of inclement weather.)

JCHS will move on to the regional tournament to play No. 16 Delta in the semifinal at 4:45 p.m. Tuesday at Noblesville. The other regional participants have yet to be determined, with sectional championship matches in the Noblesville and Alexandria tournaments scheduled for today.

“It’s really exciting,” said Jay County coach Andrea Garringer. “The girls played really well.”

Dirksen and Bailey set the tone for the match in a hurry, both rolling to 6-0 victories in their opening sets. The latter ended hers after going to deuce, earning the final point when a shot from Winchester’s Emily Cockerill flew wide left. 

It was the net game that got the job done for Dirksen, who used her height and length to make it difficult for Addyson Bogue of the Golden Falcons to get a shot past her. She earned her victory in just 31 minutes.

“What’s helped her is she was a doubles player,” said JCHS assistant coach Donald Gillespie. “When you come into singles and you can play at the net, you don’t see very many girls do that. … She gets a lot of points. She’s very good up there. That’s really helped her.”

A few minutes later, Bailey served out her shutout victory at love. Her first serve of the game was too much for Cockerill to handle, and she finished off the win by chasing the WCHS senior to the left side of the court where she was unable to get her racket on the ball cleanly.

“Really I just hit the ball back,” said Bailey, who is now 15-0. “I don’t really have a method to my madness. I just try to guess where she’s going to hit it and I try to cheat toward that.”

Faith Faulkner and Raylah Newton seemed headed for earning the sectional-clinching point at No. 1 doubles after winning 6-3 in the first set. But Johnson ripped through her second set so quickly at No. 3 singles that she beat them to the finish line as she topped Addison Thornburg 6-4, 6-0.

“She just found her groove," said Garringer. “She’s one that after she plays them and figures out her system, as long as she stays mentally stable, she plays really well.”

Moments later, Newton and Faulker capped their 6-3, 6-2 victory over Winchester’s Brooklyn Friend and Addison Haney.

The lone loss for the Patriots came at No. 2 doubles, where Gretchen Link and Sophia Sprunger fell in three sets after winning the first. Winchester freshmen Jorja Anderson and Julia Hargarten came fighting back to knock them off 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.

Semifinal

Three of the Patriots’ four wins against Union City came in straight sets, with Faulkner and Newton setting the tone with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Cintia Banda and Mya LaFuze at No. 1 doubles. Link and Sprunger took the other doubles match as they beat Sofia Emrick and Emmi Kreiner 6-4, 6-2.

Dirksen earned a 6-3, 6-0 victory at No. 2 singles over Shelby Arnold. Lilly Johnson overcame a first-set loss to beat Addison Thornburg 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.

Brenna Bailey won by forfeit at No. 1 singles.