For The Tribune
Trinity Lutheran’s girls tennis team dropped a home match 3-2 to Southwestern (Shelbyville) on Thursday afternoon.
The Cougars had trouble with the Spartans as both teams battled difficult weather conditions.
The temperature was 43 degrees with a windchill of 36 at the start of the match with moderate winds. As the match progressed, the teams played through some light rainfall.
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Trinity coach Mark Voss said with the given weather conditions, the match could have gone either way.
“Overall, I’m pretty pleased with how they played tonight because of this weather,” he said. “It’s difficult being out here.”
Voss said he noticed players did not have the same movement as they normally do and that issue was a direct result of the conditions.
“When it’s cold like this, everyone wants to put their hands in their pockets and not move,” he said, adding that it was just a natural instinct to react in such a way. “It tough to play out here, and we did have to talk to a few people about moving their feet and stuff.”
Aurora Willman started at No. 1 singles for the Cougars and defeated the Spartans’ Katelyn Clark with a score of 6-3, 6-2.
At No. 2 singles, Courtney Barker bested the Spartans’ Jonna Kuntz 6-3, 6-3.
Voss said Willman and Barker were able to keep their opponents at bay by moving the ball more on the court, forcing them to make difficult returns.
“They moved the ball around a little better than some of the others tonight and made their opponents move more than the others,” he said. “That gets them to make some error shots that go out or hit the net and I think that was the key to their victories.”
The Cougars’ Abby Schult lost her match at No. 3 singles to Vannesa Smith 6-4, 7-5.
Southwestern picked up wins in both doubles matches.
At No. 1 doubles, the Cougars’ Olivia Benter and Lauren Voss lost 6-1, 6-2 to Morgan Brockman and Brenna Jackson.
Trinity’s Leah Stuckwisch and Kelly Adams lost 6-1, 6-3 to Southwestern’s Kayla Leek and Abby Sweet.
“We were fortunate enough to win at number one and number two singles and then they took the other three matches, but we just couldn’t get that done tonight,” Voss said. “We’re just going to keep moving.”
The Cougars (1-2) are scheduled to play at the Brown County Invitational on Saturday.