Cathedral falls in district championship

Published 2:31 pm Tuesday, April 24, 2007

The good news for Cathedral’s tennis team is that three players will be advancing to the state tournament in two weeks.

However, that was still not quite enough as the Green Wave’s boys singles, boys doubles and mixed doubles could not get out of the first round and the beneficiary was St. John of Gulfport, which escaped with the Division 2, District 7-1A championship Monday at Tatum park.

Cathedral wound up in a tie for second place with Sacred Heart as each team finished with six total points, while St. John was breathing a sigh of relief that it held on for the district title with 11 total points.

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The most impressive performance by a member of Cathedral’s tennis team came from Davis Beard, who won in girls’ singles.

“She didn’t lose a game in all three matches,” Cathedral tennis coach Cloyce Hinton said. “In her three matches, she won 6-0, 6-0.”

The girls’ doubles team of Cami Willard and Madeline Beard came out on top in the girls’ doubles finals with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Ashli Fitzpatrick and Emily Meadows of Sacred Heart.

“We were down 4-1 in the second set and game back and tied it 4-4,” Hinton said. “Then were down 5-4 and came back to win the next two and won it 7-5.”

Those three players will participate in the Class 1A State Tournament, which will take place May 7-8 at Bridges Tennis Center in Jackson.

“The girls did very well,” Hinton said. “We just got unlucky with our other three teams. Nobody came out of the first round. If one team would have come out of the first round, we would have won (district).”

Seniors Nicholas Blain and John O’Beirne fell short in their first-round match in boys’ doubles. Chase Caldwell played well, but not well enough to advance to the second round in boys’ singles. And the mixed doubles team of Adam Blackwell and Mimi Nguyen got beat in the first round.

“This is the first year our boys’ doubles team have played,” Hinton said. “They came out on the last day for tryouts. One was a football player and the other was a soccer player. By the end of the year, they won one or two matches.

“Our mixed doubles team got an unlucky draw. They lost to the team who is probably going to win district. Every one of the eight teams had a strong boys singles. That is about what happened with our mixed doubles team.”