Great Bend Post Sports
Even with some new faces in Saturday's lineup and a flat tire on the way to the Garden City Invitational, Great Bend scored 134 points to finish third out of 14 squads competing. Garden City won the meet with 187 points and Larned finished second with 147 points.
Darcy Feist and Mac Lindberg got off to a big start in the open doubles bracket with an 8-0 win over Ulysses. The girls advanced to the quarterfinals with an 8-7 (2) win against Cimarron. After an 8-4 loss to the eventual fourth-place finishers from Dodge City, Feist and Lindberg beat teammates Makenzie LaViolette and Beth Hemmeke 8-4 to advance to the fifth-place match where they fell to Scott City 8-4.
LaViolette and Hammeke played a full day of tennis, beating Scott City 8-7 (9) in round one and Larned's Maggie Haas and Keirstin Pinkston 8-6 in round two. The Panthers fell to Garden City's runner-up team 8-0 in the quarters, then dropped their 8-4 set to Feist and Lindberg. LaViolette and Hammeke fell 8-4 to Garden City in the seventh-place match.
With no Paige Stacey in the lineup, Clarise Snapp moved into the No. 1 singles spot on the open bracket. She opened with an 8-1 win against Scott City before falling 8-0 to Goodland's sixth-place finisher in round two. Snapp added an 8-6 win against Colby but fell to Hays 8-7 (5) to drop to the 11th-place match. There, she was able to defeat Dodge City 8-4.
Addi Gotts played in the No. 2 singles slot, opening with an 8-2 win against Dodge City. She dropped her next match to Garden City's champion 8-0. On the back side, Gotts fell to Liberal's ninth-place finisher 8-3 but rebounded to beat Hays 8-6. Gotts lost an 8-2 match to Ulysses to finish 14th on the day.