Clara Larson. (Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
DENVER — Coming into the girls’ Class 5A state tennis tournament, no Douglas County player had advanced to the semifinals. Clara Larson came in hoping to break that streak, but came up just short. She fell 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 to Mountain Vista’s Casey Zhong in the No. 1 singles bracket.
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Larson said. “I just wanted to take it one match a time.”
But the saving grace for the Huskies is that no player in recent history has been able to advance to the quarterfinals, a feat she accomplished after a 6-0, 6-0 win over Rock Canyon sophomore Maleeha Chowdhury.
“She played against (Maleeha) during the season and that helped us not be so nervous,” Huskies coach Diane Kosakowski said.
Larson found herself in early trouble in the quarterfinal match after dropping the first set. She was able to battle back and take an early lead in set two, never giving it back. Zhong returned the favor in the third state, grabbing an early lead and not giving up any ground.
For now, the program will have to settle for program victory of returning to the semifinals and having a presence at the state tournament.
“(Now that) it’s over, I’ll probably consider it a victory for the school,” Larson said.
For the Huskies, Larson was far from the only story on the day. Before the tournament had been postponed, it didn’t look like Douglas County’s only other state qualifiers were going to be able to play. Their No. 2 doubles team of Elaine Cox and Sanskriti Sazena are both in the IB program and exams would’ve forced them to withdraw from the tournament.
Last week’s rain came as a bit of a blessing for the duo. With the tournament being pushed back five days, the girls were able to make their tennis schedule work with their exam schedule.
“I had two tests scheduled for Thursday and Friday so we weren’t going to play because school is more important,” Sazena said. “We were lucky that the tournament got postponed because we were able to figure it out.”
Unfortunately, that didn’t mean that they could solely focus their attention on tennis. An exam was moved up so they could take it 6:30 a.m. Monday morning before heading to the Gates Tennis Center for their match, which they lost to Cherry Creek’s Jessie Murphy and Mariela Hollines 6-1, 6-0.
“Before their match they were studying physics,” Kosakowski said. “These are two really smart kids. One is going to Duke (Cox) and the other is going to Berkley (Saznea).”
The duo made it their goal to reach the state tournament and just wanted the opportunity to compete at the event. Although they didn’t advance as far as they would like, they took solace in the fact that they were able to achieve a goal they had set for themselves.
“We really wanted to make it to state since we started freshman year,” Cox said. “Getting the chance to come here and just play a match was really satisfying for us.”
Notables
Sibling rivalry
The 5A tournament turned out to be a family affair for the Huskies’ Elaine Cox. Her sister Claire qualified for Ponderosa and advanced to the quarterfinals.
Marathon matches
The day was not short on extended matches. The three longest of the day all went to a tie-break at some point in the match.
- No. 2 singles: Ashley Zaeske (Mountain Range) def. Molly Winters (ThunderRidge) 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (6).
- No. 1 doubles: Devin O’Connor & Caroline Berzins (Denver East) def. Emma Campbell & Alissa Petersen (Poudre) 6-2, 6-7 (8), 6-0.
- No. 2 doubles: Laura Lencycki & Anna Hoffman (Poudre) def. Camryn Berry & Emma Floch (Fort Collins) 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (2).
- No. 3 doubles: Kate Wulf & Helena Wolf (Denver East) def. Kate Penvari & Millicent Warwick (ThunderRidge) 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (3).
Updated team scores and brackets