Published: May 07, 2008 10:42 pm            

Tigers honor Marine at home match

Lebanon — The Lebanon girls tennis team wore yellow ribbons and played with American flags on their rackets during Wednesday’s tennis match against visiting No. 21 West Lafayette.

A pre-match ceremony honored the service of Corporal Adam O’Conner, brother of senior Aly O’Conner, who returned this week from his second tour of duty in Iraq. Cpl. O’Conner served in the Marine Corps with the VMU1 Air Unit, which flies unmanned aircrafts for the purpose of gathering intelligence.

“We wanted to be able to honor him from coming back safely, and we’re really excited about that,” Erwin said.

Assistant Coach Karen Ruch’s son, Kyle, is currently serving in Iraq. He was also honored during Wednesday’s pre-match ceremony.

As the match began, the Lady Tigers’ fifth match in five days, fatigue became an issue against the talented Lady Red Devil squad. Lebanon fell to West Lafayette 5-0.

The No. 1 singles match was easily the most compelling of the day, going three exciting sets. It began one-sided, as Aly O’Conner took the first set 6-0. Her West Lafayette opponent Jill Farnsworth fought back to take the second set 6-3.

The third set went back-and-forth, as each player continued to break the other’s powerful serve. They played evenly until the set stood at 5-5, when Farnsworth caught her stride and took the next two games for the victory.

Lebanon sophomore Elizabeth Henson took over for senior Caroline Lariviere, who was not available to play, at the No. 2 singles spot. She was evenly matched with the Devils’ Angela Jiona, but lost the match 6-2, 6-4.

“Elizabeth Henson probably should have won her match,” Erwin said. “Her opponent was real consistent, but Elizabeth is a better player, and I think she had a long three-hour match last night. So, she’s just pretty spent today.”

In No. 3 singles, junior MacKenzie Jones stepped up from the junior varsity level, falling to Lia Burvell 6-1, 6-0.

“(Jones) just hustles and runs all over the place, but she just wasn’t able to keep up with their No. 3,” Erwin said.

West Lafayette has lived off of solid doubles play all season, and Wednesday was no exception. Lebanon’s No. 1 team of junior Julie Ward and sophomore Rose Sparks were topped by Liz Bremer and Madison Leslie 6-0, 6-2.

In No. 2 doubles action, the Lady Tigers’ team of junior Emily Northcutt and sophomore Kelli Nelson lost to Lindsey Martin and Bindee Ranganath 6-1, 6-0.

“West Lafayette’s doubles are always overly-prepared, so we were hoping to be able to keep up with them,” Erwin said.

The Lady Tiger junior varsity team continues to perform well, beating the Red Devils 5-2.

Maddie Ruch fell to Himaya Govindarju in a tight match 9-8 (7-3). Debbie Williams slipped against Namita Balachander 8-5. Meredith Erwin won her match over Katie Kraise 8-6, and Katie Kincaid defeated Abbey Christensen 8-6.

In JV doubles, the team of Emily Brandenburg and Jessie Bridgeman beat Debasree Ghosh and Shravani Nerguereddy 8-4. Kincaid and Savannah Cline defeated Haley Morris and Noelle Itin 8-1. Summer Brandenstein and Amanda Monn won over Priya Sharma and Maral Altanbadrait 8-3.

After playing every day this week, the Lady Tigers (6-4) will be back for more non-conference action at 4:30 p.m. today at Brownsburg.

        

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