The Warsaw Community High School girls tennis team didn't waste much time with rival Wawasee Thursday.
Hosting the Northern Lakes Conference match, Warsaw (5-2, 3-1 NLC) breezed to a 5-0 match win over the Lady Warriors (2-7, 0-5 NLC), which took just an hour to complete."We expected to win," Warsaw coach Rick Orban said. "We've got a lot of talent this year, and we knew (Wawasee) was struggling. But, it's Wawasee and it's Warsaw. I kept the girls focused. I kept them extremely focused, because, every once in a while - and this isn't a knock on Wawasee - you can drop your level of play to the other team's level. I didn't want to see that tonight, because we're playing Fort Wayne Concordia (tonight) and I wanted to keep the level of play as high as possible."
And Wawasee has been struggling.
After winning its first two matches of the season, the Lady Warriors have dropped seven in a row, including all five of their NLC contests.
"Wawasee is a great group of kids and they gave it their all," Orban said. "That's what you expect from them."
Despite giving it their all, Wawasee managed to win just one game on all five courts.
The closest match of the night came at No. 2 doubles, where Kandi Kesler and Liesl Schroedl were 6-1, 6-0 victors over Cayla Hilgenberg and Morgan Geer.
Following a 3-2 loss against Plymouth on April 20, Warsaw has won its last four matches by a combined score of 18-2, including 4-1 and 5-0 wins over Northridge and Carroll, respectively.
"We talked after the Plymouth loss as a team," Orban said. "Granted, (in that loss) we had to move a couple of kids around because of injuries, but the kids were convinced they should have won that match. For the Northridge match, I talked about them not coming off the courts thinking, 'Gee, I should have won that match.' You need to come off the courts saying, 'I did win.' They took it seriously."
Warsaw and Concordia square off today at 4:30 p.m. at Tiger Courts, while Wawasee is back on the courts Monday at West Noble.
