LHS girls’ tennis turns in program-best performance at State

The Lennox High School girls’ tennis team turned in its best State tournament performance in program history as the Orioles traveled to Rapid City Oct. 4-6 to compete in the Class A State Tennis Tournament.

Lennox entered the tournament with a 4-5 Class A record and a 4-8 overall record but put together a strong opening day that had the Orioles sitting in third place heading into the second day of competition. Despite several close matches, Lennox narrowly missed a top-four team finish by just 3.5 points, taking sixth overall. 

“As a team, this was our best performance at State for girls’ tennis since the program started 10 years ago,” said head coach Kevin Plank. “We had a very successful first day which put us in third place overall going into day two, but a few matches didn’t fall our way on Tuesday and we ended up missing a top four spot by just 3.5 team points. The team peaked at the right time and I’m extremely proud on we competed when it matters most.”

At Flight #1 Brooke Buehner came in as the #8 seed. She took down Aberdeen Roncalli in the first round but dropped her quarterfinal match against the #1 seed from Sioux Falls Christian.  This put her in position to play for fifth place, but she wasn’t able to earn the next round win against the #4 seed from Vermillion.  

Nora Alustiza came in as the #9 seed at Flight #2 singles and had a first-round match against Spearfish, which she split matches with during the season.

 Alustiza stayed mentally strong and earned the first-round win, which then paired her up against the #1 seed from Sioux Falls Christian where she dropped that match.  This put her in position to play for fifth place where she took down Madison, but then dropped the next match against Vermillion.  

Karlie Bosma at flight #3 came in as the #1 seed. Bosma had a bye her first round and then won against Milbank, which put her into the semi-finals. However, the competition, along with a nagging injury, proved to be too much, Bosma dropped her semi-final match against Rapid City Christian and then next match to Huron to earn a fourth place finish. 

Ella Ellwien came in as a number eight seed and took down spearfish in her first-round match, but then dropped her quarterfinal match against the #1 seed from Sioux Falls Christian.  She then won her next match against Spearfish but was then taken out by Roncalli en route to try and earn a fifth place finish.  

Maliyah Hofer came in as the #8 seed as well and won her first-round match against Spearfish. This also put her in a match up against the #1 seed from Sioux Falls Christian, in which Christian took the win. Hofer then lost a competitive battle in her next round against Madison which ended her singles run.  

Gracie Wood at flight #6 came in as the #6 seed, which put her up against the #3 seed from Roncalli.  Wood had just lost to her opponent two weeks prior, and was down 0-3 to start the match, but then rallied to win 12 of the next 16 games to get the upset win and put her in the semi-finals. Wood dropped her semi-finals match-up against a tough Rapid City Christian opponent, and then almost took the win against Huron, but dropped a close match to walk away with a 4th place finish.

At flight #1 doubles, Buehner and Karlie Bosma came in as the #3 seed after a strong regular season. They took down Roncalli in their first match up to put them in the semifinals. Their match-up with Rapid City Christian proved to be too tough and they dropped that match. This put them in position to play for third against a solid Vermillion team, but Buehner and Bosma were not going to be denied and took down the #4 seeds from Vermillion 10-4 to earn a third place finish.   

Ellwein and Hofer came in as the #6 seed and had to play the #3 seed from Roncalli, but dropped this match to put them in place to play for fifth place. Next up, they played a close and competitive match against Spearfish, but unfortunately Spearfish came away with the win in a tie-breaker. 

At flight #3 doubles Karlie Bosma and Peyton Herlyn came in as the #7 seed.  Their first-round match up was with Madison in which the Bulldogs took win from Lennox just five days ago. The O’s came out with lots of energy and confidence and scored a convincing win. This put them in the quarterfinals against the #2 seed from Roncalli.  Again, the O’s played and competed hard, but unfortunately couldn’t come away with the win.  This put them against Huron for a chance to play for 5th place, in which the O’s earned the win to give them a match up against St. Thomas More.  Herlyn and Bosma didn’t let down and scored this win as well to earn the fifth place finish.