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Lady Tigers tennis wins district semifinal
Alexa Cubbage stole the show as the Nevada Lady Tigers tennis team took on Clinton in a district semifinal match at Nevada High School Tuesday evening. In the No. 6 singles match, Cubbage found herself in a hole on a number of occasions and after a match that lasted roughly two hours, was finally able to secure the victory after three sets and a tiebreaker to give the Lady Tigers the dual victory.
Cubbage battled adversity right from the start as she was plagued by episodes of heat exhaustion and hypoglycemia that made it seem as though she may be out of contention a matter of minutes after the match began. She never gave up, however, and despite needing a bag of ice to cool her down and two snack breaks, was ultimately able to finish the match.
"Not much you can do about it," Lady Tigers head coach Sam Short said. "It's just a medical condition with her."
Cubbage won the first set of the best two out of three match, 7-5, and that was when the troubles started. Cubbage was nearly forced to forfeit the match after a lengthy medical timeout, but refused to quit and ultimately came back and played the second set as the sun began to set. She was unable to overcome her struggles in the second set and ultimately lost 6-1.
Then came the turnaround.
As the sun and temperature went down, Cubbage's play picked up quickly and she and her Clinton opponent appeared to be very evenly matched from that point on. So much so that the third set ended up tied 6-6, forcing a tiebreaker. Cubbage quickly found herself in another hole as she went down 3-0 early in the tiebreaker, but came back to score the next seven points to win, 6-6 (7-3).
"It was about a two-hour match," Short said of Cubbage's marathon battle.
That was the only one of the six singles matches to go past two sets as Katie Brauer, Leah Creasy and Regan Kimbrough all earned victories in the Nos. 2, 3 and 4 singles matches.
Katlyn Short wasn't so lucky in the No. 1 singles match. As she has seen happen all season long, she found herself up against a very tough opponent and despite playing a very tough match in which she made a number of impressive plays, fell short in two sets by the final scores of 6-2, 6-2.
"She plays well in singles, she just can't get it to fall her way," Sam Short said of the senior.
Things turned around for Katlyn in doubles play, however, as she and Brauer teamed up in the No. 1 match. Clinton and Nevada seemed very even in that match as well, but Katlyn and Brauer were ultimately able to come out on top in two sets, 6-4, 6-4.
"We're just happy to get past this one," Sam Short said. "I was a little worried about getting past Clinton."
This year's district tournament has a somewhat different setup from past years in that the district has been reduced to just six teams as opposed to the 11 or 12 that used to make up each district. Because of that, teams are now able to play a dual format in each round of the tournament, rather than simply all coming together and playing all day, deciding a winner based on points.
Sam Short is much more fond of this new format that now consists of duals played at the higher seed's home courts in a traditional tournament format since that can better indicate the true talent on each team. "When you're accumulating points, that's not really a reflection on how your team can play," she said.
With that win, the Lady Tigers will now advance to the district championship match and will take on either Harrisonville or Warrensburg today, at 4 p.m., with the higher seeded team hosting the match. Harrisonville was scheduled to visit Warrensburg on Tuesday to determine which squad Nevada will face in the district championship dual.