Sours and St. Myers fall to Tigers (05/27/04)

PERU — Through two sets and eight games the sectional doubles match at Peru between Jay County and the Northwestern Tigers was as close as it could have been. The teams were tied — each had taken one set by a 6-3 score, and the third set was even at 4-4 — before it quickly became one-sided.

A chance at a regional doubles berth slipped away from the Patriots’ Julie Sours and Erin St. Myers as they won just two of the final 10 points against Sarah Conwell and Katie Hungate for a 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 defeat at Peru.

“I’m proud of the girls,” said Jay County coach Barb Stults of the junior pair, who made the deepest tournament run since the Patriots lost to Kokomo in the finals of the team regional in 2001. “They took it to three sets.”

Seniors Conwell and Hungate (12-3) will still have to play one more match to earn a trip to the doubles regional.

Kokomo defeated Peru 3-2 in Wednesday’s team regional championship match. However, Peru’s No. 1 doubles team of juniors Jodi Frank and Meg Guthrie remained unbeaten in tournament play with a 6-2, 6-2 win over seniors Lisa Thompson and Whittney Beechy of Kokomo.

Frank and Guthrie will meet Conwell and Hungate at Peru today at 4 p.m. for the doubles sectional title. The winners will advance to play the Homestead sectional champion in regional action at Indianapolis North Central Saturday, June 5 at 10 a.m.

Wednesday’s match was tied at 4-4, and the teams were on serve in the third set when Sours stepped behind the line to start the ninth game. The Patriots (12-4) dropped the first point when a St. Myers shot went into the net, but the game evened when Conwell knocked a shot long.

However, Northwestern broke Sours’ serve by winning the next three points. The service break gave the Tigers a 5-4 advantage with Conwell set to serve the next game.

Conwell and Hungate earned the first two points of the 10th game on unforced errors by Sours and St. Myers. Sours pulled the Patriot pair to within 30-15 with a nice overhead volley, but St. Myers knocked her return of Conwell’s next serve long to give Northwestern a double match point.

The Tigers didn’t need both of them, finishing it on the first match point with a superb volley from Hungate.

“I think the key to that whole match was which team was more aggressive,” said Northwestern coach Tica Rogers, noting the shift in dominance between the first and second sets. “I just think we were able to take a little more advantage of the second serves and put a little more pressure on by getting to the net.”

Jay County had a chance to win late in the third set despite a dramatic disparity in first-serve percentage.

Conwell and Hungate were incredibly accurate with their first serves, hitting their first 16 of the third set in play. Sours and St. Myers hit just 11 first serves in play in the entire final set.

Overall, the Tiger duo finished with a first-serve percentage of 72 (68-of-94), including 79 percent by Hungate. They also hit 79 percent of their first serves in play in the third set.

Jay County finished at nearly a 50-percent disadvantage, hitting just 23 percent (24-of-105).

The Patriots also had 14 double faults, compared to one by Northwestern.

“(Getting first serves in) is huge,” said Rogers, whose team played often with both players at the net. “It’s more about being able to get the first serve in and placing it. That’s what (Conwell and Hungate) tried to do. They try to set up their partner.”

Despite the rough serving numbers Sours and St. Myers were right in the match thanks to a great close-out of the second set.

It was tied 3-3, and Northwestern had a game point in the seventh game when the Patriots caught fire. Sours denied the game point with a cross-court volley slam, Hungate knocked a shot long on the next point and Sours followed with a winner to score the service break.

St. Myers served the next game up 4-3, which Jay County won thanks to back-to-back unforced errors by Conwell. Northwestern took the first two points of the next game on Conwell’s serve as it tried to stave off the Patriots, but Conwell made unforced errors on the next two points and eventually dropped the set 6-3 on a double-fault.

Sours and St. Myers had their chances in the first set, but could not convert. They trailed 4-3 after seven games, but failed to convert on a break point in the eighth which could have put the set back on serve.

They then had two game points with Sours serving in the ninth game, but couldn’t put it away.

Conwell made them pay with three consecutive winners, ending the set at 6-3 with a drop shot off of a looping Sours volley.

Jay County rallied late in the second set to force a third, only to have the Tigers come up big in the final two games.

“I think in the second set they started to get their confidence back a little more,” said Stults. “Other than that they played great.”

Rogers agreed that Sours and St. Myers will be a team to be reckoned with during their senior season.

“I think they played a very nice match,” she said. “They’re very aggressive. We had to play very well tonight to beat them.

“I think they’ll have a lot of success in the future.”[[In-content Ad]]