CULVER – With a smile on her face, Warsaw tennis player Colette Smith admitted Wednesday night she enjoys playing long matches. The talented sophomore must have loved her regional final against Plymouth junior Ashley Harrell. With the team scored tied 2-2 in the championship match at Culver Academies, Smith won a marathon of a No. 2 singles match, lifting the Lady Tigers to their first regional title since 2005. Smith won the first set 7-5, lost the second 6-4 and then won the third 7-6 via a 7-5 tiebreak victory. Play began just after 5 p.m. and ended shortly after 9 p.m. “I was nervous, but I knew how to beat her, and I knew I was the deciding match,” said Smith, one of five sophomores in Warsaw’s seven-player lineup. “I saw everyone watching, and I was like ‘I have to do this for everybody.’ I just tried to get to every ball and not make a mistake.” Smith trailed 2-0 in the third set, but rallied to take a 5-3 lead. Harrell won the next three games to take a 6-5 lead, before Smith won the next game and then the tiebreaker. “It was really pressure-packed, I was freaking out,” said Smith. “Every point was cheered on, every double fault was cheered on. It was crazy, but it motivated me to win.” With their 3-2 win, the Lady Tigers advanced to Saturday’s Culver Academies Semistate. Warsaw, now 11-5 on the season, will face fourth-ranked South Bend St. Joe (16-2) at noon. St. Joe advanced to the semistate with a 5-0 win over LaPorte. Wednesday’s win avenged a 4-1 loss to Plymouth in last year’s regional semifinal, as well as a 4-1 loss to the Pilgrims on April 19. In the loss earlier this season, Smith was the only winner for the Lady Tigers, beating Harrell 6-3, 7-5. “We talked most of the week about the first match, losing 4-1,” said Warsaw coach Rick Orban. “I don’t think any of the girls believed it should have been that way. Plymouth is a tough team. They are talented, they have a good coach ... but so are we. “We were reminded of what we felt like when we left these courts last year with a loss to Plymouth. Basically, we didn’t wanna feel that way again. We came in here to win, and it was really fun to watch.” The Lady Tigers scored all three of their team points in singles play. At No. 1 singles, sophomore Liza Lewis beat Plymouth junior Lanae Singleton 7-5, 7-5. At No. 3 singles, Warsaw sophomore Ella Knight beat sophomore Cortni Cook 6-1, 6-3. In No. 1 doubles action, Plymouth sophomore McKenzie Sheetz and junior Kendall Dreibelbis topped sophomore Hannah Rice and junior Athena Schlitt 4-6, 6-0, 6-1. And at No. 2 doubles, senior Kayla Hoober and sophomore Leah Smith beat Warsaw senior Rosie Fleming and sophomore Grace Miller 6-3, 6-1. “That was our third match of the season,” Orban said of the previous match with Plymouth. “Our schedule is so tough. I’ve watched these kids mature. I told them, ‘you’re not sophomores anymore. In essence, you’re juniors at this stage, and you’ve played the best of the best.’ “I was worried halfway through the season that our schedule was so tough that they were starting to get kind of deflated. We talked about the schedule, we talked about the maturity, and all of the sudden you could just see it coming.”
