Lady Panthers dominate Metro East
BY AARON OTTIS
SPORTS EDITOR
JERSEYVILLE – The Jersey Community High School girl’s tennis team opened their season with a win over Metro East Lutheran High School Monday.

Jersey, with only two returning letter winners in juniors Danah McCreary and Kelsee Narin, won 5-0 before rain forced the teams to stop the meet prematurely. The doubles matches had just began when the rain started to fall.

“It is a good way to start the season,” said Jersey coach Beth Morgan. “Metro East is a younger team, but they are in our sectional. We added them to the schedule this year to make sure we didn’t run into any surprises if we have to face them at the sectional. We came out strong. The girls really wanted to win their first match at home. We were playing great until the rain came in.”

Morgan expects to have some growing pains this season. Unlike last season when the Lady Panthers had a host of seniors to lead the team, the team has none this season. The situation gave Morgan a chance to move younger players into varsity positions, but it also means that Jersey does not have much varsity experience to fall back on.

“We are definitely in a transitional year. The one senior I had that I was expecting to come back decided to not come out and play. We have McCreary and Nairn as our only returning letter winners, and three juniors that are playing varsity for the first time this year,” Morgan said. “The tough part is that with the other teams that we play, our underclassmen don’t get a lot of playing time during the season. We take them, and they play when they can. We also have three sophomores that made big improvements between last year and this year. We’re carrying eight on the varsity roster right now for singles and doubles.”

McCreary made short work of Schwartzkopf at No. 1 singles, winning 6-0, 6-2. Nairn, after struggling early to get comfortable with her serve, coasted through her No. 2 singles match with Poletti at 6-1, 6-0.

“I felt really good,” McCreary said. “I felt like I did really well. Getting a win help build a little confidence.”

Nairn just needed to iron out the wrinkles in her serve, and by the end of the match she said she felt fine.

“I started getting comfortable later on in the match, and I started trying new things,” Nairn said. “I started making myself get my toss up and work. Once I got through it, I was alright.”

McCreary and Nairn have set their sights on qualifying for the IHSA State tourney this season. The duo didn’t see much time on the court together Monday with the rain, but they agreed that they played well for a few short games.

“We’ve been playing doubles for so long, we are just used to each other and how we play,” Nairn said. “I am a little less confident at singles than doubles.”

Jersey is 1-0 through Monday, and will travel to Waterloo on Wednesday and Civic Memorial on Tuesday.

At Jerseyville
JCHS defeats MELHS 5-0
Singles – No. 1 McCreary def. Schwartzkopf 6-0, 6-2; Nairn def. Poletti 6-1, 6-0; DeSherlia def. Wieden 6-2, 6-0; Jungk def. Gotlieb 6-0, 6-1; Crawford def. Ayers 6-1, 4-3 (delayed).

Junior Kelsey Nairn won her No. 2 singles match. Aaron Ottis/thejcstar.com