The prospect of rain drove Monday’s Northern Lakes Conference girls tennis match between Warsaw and Goshen to the Warsaw Tennis & Fitness Club. Moving the conference match indoors, the Warsaw Lady Tigers (7-5, 6-1 NLC) posted a 3-2 win over the Goshen Lady Redskins (9-6, 2-4 NLC), moving into a three-way tie for first place with Northridge and Concord. One would have thought Warsaw would have an upper hand playing indoors, having just done so Tuesday against NorthWood. However, Warsaw coach Rick Orban would have actually preferred playing the Redskins at the Warsaw Community High School tennis courts. “I really wanted to play this outside, and honestly, it was because of their one, two and three singles,” he said. “I would have liked a little bit of weather to kind of interrupt them.” Goshen’s singles did cause the Lady Tigers some problems, as Warsaw’s Sarah Boyle lost 6-0, 6-0 on the No. 2 court and Jacqueline Sasso lost 6-1, 6-2 at No. 3. However, at No. 1, senior Sarah Hartle fought through an ankle injury to win 6-2, 6-3 against Ali Peters. “Senior night, she's undefeated in the NLC, so even with the bad ankle I knew she was going to win,” Orban said. “She wasn't going to lose this. I also knew our No. 2 and 3 singles were going to be pushed hard. I figured our one doubles would win, they're undefeated in the NLC, and our two doubles was kind of the big guess.” The No. 1 doubles team of Lindsay Sciarra and Olivia Wallin did breeze to a 6-0, 6-1 win, setting up the decisive match at No. 2 doubles. With everyone else finished, the gaze of the indoor facility fell on the No. 2 doubles court, where Warsaw’s Rachel Alexander and Mallory Bartel nabbed the opening set 6-4 from Goshen’s Brittany Graber and Kayci Troyer. Alexander and Bartel fought back from a 2-1 second-set deficit to go in front 3-2. With the match hanging in the balance, Warsaw’s tandem battled through numerous deuce, ad-in and ad-out scores to take the sixth point of the set and a 4-2 lead. “I knew if we won that game, we were going to win the match, because that is a momentum breaker and it's kind of a heart breaker,” Orban said. After winning that long point, the Lady Tigers went on to claim the last two points, taking the set 6-2. In a first-place tie for the NLC regular season, Warsaw now gears up for the conference tournament, slated to run from Wednesday to Friday at Concord. “It's going to be close,” Orban said about the tournament. “It always is. It's three-straight nights. We're still nursing some injuries and it's some rough tennis.”
