The McPherson Varsity tennis girls put in real work at their first meet on August 24 where they had a three way tie for first with home team Hesston and Buhler. Not only did the girls do well overall as individuals they competed well. Freshman Patty Huerta made her high school debut and placed 6th playing no.1 singles against a bracket of tough girls. Accompanying Huerta in a debut was Carley Malm who played no. 2 singles and took 4th place for the tournament. Majority of the girls were not new to the game, Taylor Bruce, junior, who placed 4th at state last season, returned to play no. 1 doubles along with CeAnna Allen, sophomore.

Bruce, junior, said “I started playing tennis when I was around 4 or 5 and I started because we have such a great summer program that I was like okay, why not, so I tried it that summer and fell in love.”

The remaining veterans include Ashley Achilles, senior and Rachel Carlson, junior playing no. 2 singles. Both of the doubles team played hard and received first place in their brackets.

All the girls were put to the test in one match or another playing to their very best ability, which luckily worked out at the end of the day. One tough match was Bruce and Allen in their finals against Hesston’s Martin sisters. Allen is no stranger to playing the sisters she was in a similar situation last year with Carlson in the finals. Back and forth through a tough match Bruce and Allen came out on top with a big win for McPherson.

Bruce said “I thought Hesston went terrific, CeAnna and I did awesome as well as the rest of the team… I knew we had some tougher competition towards the quarters and finals but CeAnna and I buckled down and finished and obviously came out on top with the win!”