Great Bend Post Sports
Tuesday's tennis invite in Dodge City was a runaway for one team. Garden City scored 72 points for an easy first-place trophy. The rest of the teams battled it out. Cimarron finished second with 52 points, and Great Bend scored 40 points for third. Dodge City and Hays each scored 31 points in the seven-school field.
All No. 1 and No. 2 players were lumped into the same bracket. Kaylin Wahlmeier led the Panthers with a fifth-place finish in the singles bracket. She blanked her first opponent from Dodge City, then just missed the semifinals with an 8-7 (7-2) loss to the eventual fourth-place finisher from Garden City. Walhmeier defeated Cimarron 8-4 and Dodge City 8-2 to capture fifth place.
Paige Stacey played in the other singles slot, opening with an 8-6 loss to the eventual third-place finisher from Garden City. Stacey cruised after that, beating Liberal and Hays both by an 8-1 tally. She defeated Dodge City 8-6 in the ninth-place match.
Seniors Taylor Lashley and Sam Mayers finished sixth in the doubles bracket. The girls shutout Liberal before getting blanked by the eventual runners-up in an all-Garden City finale. After an 8-6 win against Dodge City, Lashley and Mayers fell to Hays 8-4 in the fifth-place match.
Hays' No. 2 duo not only beat Lashley and Mayers in that final match, but also put Lady Panthers Darcy Feist and Mac Lindberg into the backside with an 8-4 win in round one. The Great Bend pair did not lose again, beating Dodge City 8-2, Dodge City's other team 8-7 (7-1), and Cimarron 8-1 to secure ninth place.