Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
LaPORTE - Warsaw girls tennis coach Joe Beeson felt his team would win.
Oh, all coaches go into games, meets or matches saying they think their team will win. The coach who says beforehand he thinks his team will lose won't keep his job for long.
But Beeson truly believed his team would win Saturday morning, expected it as Hoosiers came to expect rain last week.
His team came as close to a win as it could, only to swat it away.
Warsaw (16-3) lost 3-2 to No. 18 Merrillville (16-1) in Saturday's LaPorte Semistate semifinals. Fueling Beeson's optimism was that Merrillville's strength is its No. 1 and No. 2 singles players, and the team lost its No. 2 singles player to an ankle injury.
Tiffany Sajdera sprained her ankle in practice on Friday, and after determining she couldn't play on it, alternate Arial Dennie filled in.
"I really did feel we would win [Saturday] morning, felt we had a strong chance to win this match," Beeson said. "I felt good about it. We had our chances."
With the teams tied at 2, which team won and which team lost came down to the No. 2 doubles match.
All signs pointed toward Warsaw winning the No. 2 doubles match to advance to the semistate championship.
With Warsaw's Angie Suchecki and Tracy Yoder up 5-1 in the third set tiebreaker, all they needed was one more point. For Merrillville's Julie Lesniak and Lisa Ross to win, they had to score six unanswered points.
Lesniak's and Ross' room for error? It didn't exist.
They needed all the help they could get.
Warsaw was only too willing to oblige.
While Merrillville's two players stayed aggressive, Warsaw went on the defensive, playing not lose rather than playing to close out the match. The attacking style that made Warsaw successful earlier vanished, and so did the chance for the win.
Yoder double-faulted. Suchecki swung and whiffed in a return attempt. Warsaw returns started going too deep and out of bounds. Shots that should have been easy to return were inexplicably swatted into the net.
The unthinkable happened: Down 5-1, Merrillville kept Warsaw at 5 and rallied for six unanswered points to win the set 7-6(5) and win the match.
Beeson, sitting courtside, dropped his head in stunned disbelief.
"We were up 5-1 in the third-set tiebreaker and lost it 7-5," he said incredulously. "We let it get away. Our two doubles had their opportunities."
Just as stunned was Merrillville coach Dave Zimmerman
"It's amazing it turned out the way it did, isn't it?" he said. "It didn't look good, but our girls weren't quitters. I believe the tournaments we played in and the level of play we faced there paid off when they were down 5-1."
Suchecki and Yoder won the first set 6-2 then lost the second set by the same score, setting up the third set. Warsaw was up 5-4 and serving for the match when Merrillville forced the third set tiebreaker. Lesniak and Ross improved to 22-3, while Suchecki and Yoder finished 20-4.
The key to the turnaround in the tiebreaker? The net, Beeson said.
"You have to give credit to Merrillville," he said. "They took the net away from us."
Just as Warsaw took advantage of Merrillville's key injury earlier. Warsaw's Lauren Witzky (18-4) won her No. 2 singles match over alternate Dennie, beating her 6-4, 6-2.
Zimmerman had no doubts about who would have won had Sajdera played.
"Tiffany would have won," he said. "Tiffany was 19-3. Looking at a common opponent from the season, Tiffany beat a girl 6-4, 6-0, while [Witzky] went three sets with that same girl.
"Tiffany is quite a player; she was on the North All-State team. We definitely could have used her today. She tried to go, but she couldn't move laterally."
While Beeson may not have seen it as cut and dried, he acknowledged the outcome could have been different.
"They were very strong at No. 2 singles," he said. "It would have been very tough for us."
The day wasn't a total loss for Warsaw. Because its No. 1 doubles team, Kara Kesler and Amber Barrett, won their match, they advance to the state meet in the individual portion of the state tennis tournament. Barrett and Kesler, 22-3, quickly dispatched of Radhika Dave and Kathleen Szot 6-1, 6-3 in the first match completed. Dave and Szot dropped to 8-17.
Merrillville tied Warsaw at 1 after Casady Pruitt beat Jessica Davis 6-2, 6-1 in the No. 1 singles match. Pruitt often had Davis on the run from side to side on the court, but it wasn't surprising. Pruitt, 21-2, is ranked fifth in the state at No. 1 singles. Davis, only a freshman, ended the season with an impressive 20-5 record.
Warsaw took a 2-1 lead after Witzky won, but Merrillville No. 3 singles player Jennifer Ramirez evened the score at 2-all after she beat freshman Kristi Haddad 6-3, 6-1. Ramirez improved to 17-4, while the freshman Haddad ended the year with a stellar 19-5 record.
"The one thing that surprised me was how strong Merrillville was at No. 3 singles," Beeson said. "That was a big surprise."
In the other first-round match, Munster (16-2) beat South Bend St. Joe (20-2) 3-2. St. Joe played without No. 1 singles player Eileen Varga, who was sidelined by an injury. The semistate championship was rained out Saturday and played Monday. Merrillville beat Munster 3-2 in the championship to advance to the state finals.
The Tigers accomplished Beeson's two goals he has every season as coach: Win the Northern Lakes Conference title and win the sectional title.
Warsaw did those two things. Beeson, who returned as coach this year after resigning following the 1991 season, led Warsaw to its first NLC title since 1991 and its first semistate since 1991.
"We've had one great season," he said. "We're all terribly disappointed, but we have a wonderful nucleus to build on. But that's for the future. This is where we're at now, and this loss hurts."
That's because Beeson thought for sure his team would still be playing tennis Monday in the championship and possibly this week at the state finals.
"I really felt," he said, "our team had a chance to get to the final four."
LAPORTE SEMISTATE
Saturday
No. 18 MERRILLVILLE 3, WARSAW 2
Singles
No. 1 - Casady Pruitt (MER/21-2) def. Jessica Davis (20-5) 6-2, 6-1
No. 2 -ÊLauren Witzky (WAR/18-4) def. Arial Dennie 6-4, 6-2
No. 3 -ÊJennifer Ramirez (MER/17-4) def. Kristi Haddad (19-5) 6-3, 6-1
Doubles
No. 1 - Amber Barrett/Kara Kesler (WAR/22-3) def. Radhika Dave/Kathleen Szot (8-17) 6-1, 6-3
No. 2 -ÊJulie Lesniak/Lisa Ross (MER/22-3) def. Angie Suchecki/Tracy Yoder (20-4) 2-6, 6-2, 7-6(5)
