GSL tennis players exit championship bracket at State 4A tennis

VANCOUVER – Greater Spokane League players loved the first round of the State 4A tennis tournament Friday, but fell flat in the second round.

All five entries won first-round matches, but all five lost straight-sets quarterfinals.

“We played much better in our first match,” Gonzaga Prep’s Riley Poppy said after he and doubles partner Alex Hattemer lost to Bellermine Prep’s Spencer Herron and Keenan Dolan in their evening match.

The Bullpups’ pair lost 6-2, 6-2, but Hattemer still felt they let a winnable match get away.

“We’re better than them,” Hattemer said. “We didn’t play well.”

Poppy and Hattemer narrowly beat Bellermine’s other doubles entry, Connor Brown and Henry Wurst, in the first round’s closest match, 7-6, 7-6.

On the singles side, G-Prep’s Alex Marcinkowski knew he had an uphill battle in his quarterfinal, drawing Jackson’s Michael Chamerski, the top-ranked 18-year-old singles player in the Northwest.

After a straight-sets, first-round win over Bellermine’s Alex Vogt, Marcinkowski was overpowered 6-2, 6-1 in the quarterfinal.

“He’s as good as it gets for the Northwest,” the sophomore said of Chamerski. “I had nothing to lose. I came out swinging. He’s just better than me.”

On the girls side, Central Valley’s Leslie Ho had a similar fate, winning her first-round match easily, but drawing last year’s State 4A runner-up, Megan Lalone of Stanwood. Ho fell easily 6-0, 6-1.

Ho lost to Lalone at the state tournament last year, also in the quarterfinal.

Mead’s Katijene Stime lost her singles quarterfinal to Union freshman Jelena Vidovic, 6-1, 6-2.

Stime, competing in her fourth state tournament, opened with a straight-sets win over Olympia’s Alli Bautista.

The power game did in Mead’s girls doubles team of Elise Ellingsen and Chelsea Motzer in their quarterfinal.

The Panthers outlasted Shannon Wong and Alexis Gregerson of Mt. Rainier in two sets to open the tournament, but then lost 6-4, 6-3, to Skyview’s Brittany Ellingsen and Anna Romanofsky.

Elise Ellingsen was awed by her opponents’ power game, specifically Britany Ellingsen, who drove ground strokes with incredible pace and topspin, and pounded eight service winners in the second set.

“I’ve never seen anything like that. Never played anything like that,” the Panthers’ senior said after the loss.

All the GSL entries will play consolation matches today, with chances to place as high as fourth in state.

“We’ll just have fun,” Elise Ellingsen said of the upcoming consolation matches. “We got here, I’m proud of that.”

3A: The lone GSL representatives, the University High doubles team of Jessi Barth and Lauren Archibald, scored an initial victory before losing their next two matches and being eliminated.

2A: West Valley’s doubles pair of Anh Phan and Dru Sanchez scored a pair of straight-set victories to reach today’s girls semifinals.

KC McConnell of Clarkston did the same in reaching the girls singles semis.

Reaching today’s fifth/eighth semis were the Clarkston doubles team of Jordan Jones and Ryan Adams, boys singles player Jorge Rey Montejo of Deer Park and girls singles player Melissa Vollmer of Pullman. The Clarkston girls doubles team of Ashley Meyers and Roni Hewett in the semifinals of the fourth-seventh bracket.

1A/2B/1B: No area players remain in the championship bracket at Yakima. Kevin Murphy of Reardan reached today’s boys singles consolation championship. Miranda Mielke of Davenport did the same in girls singles, as did the girls doubles team of Liselotte Doggen and Erin Little of Colville.