The Princeton Tigresses found a way to win the day’s two closest matches, but the host Streator Bulldogs – powered by a sweep of singles play – won the other three to come out with a 3-2 team victory Tuesday in matchup of old North Central Illinois Conference rivals.
Princeton’s taking two of three doubles matches meant Streator senior singles players Garvi Patel at No. 1 and Isa Gutierrez at No. 2 had to both take care of business on a hot day to notch the team victory. They did exactly that, with Gutierrez defeating Princeton’s Daphnie Grant 6-2, 6-1 while Patel topped Tigresses No. 1 Tessa Carlson 6-1, 6-2.
“My shots were good today, and my serves were maybe OK?” Patel said. “They could have been better, but my angle shots and my volleys were good, and I was [light on] my feet. I didn’t feel like my feet were planted.”
The Bulldogs’ doubles win came at No. 2 in a back-and-forth, competitive match, with the hosts’ Izzi Mahan and Julie Chaudhari picking up a hard-fought 6-3, 6-4 decision over the Princeton pairing of Alice Scruggs and Uli Schneider.
In fact, all three doubles matches were quite competitive.
At No. 3 doubles, the Tigresses’ Lilly Mabry and Piper Hansen survived a test from Streator’s Remy Coley and Madison Bedeker, 6-4, 7-5. And in the evening’s longest match at No. 2 doubles, Princeton’s Anna Munson and Ava Ellis came back from an opening-set blanking to top the Streator pair of Audrey Arambula and Addie Mahan 0-6, 7-5, 10-7.
“After losing the first set really bad, we knew that we had to prove that we were the better team today,” Munson said. “We just started playing more aggressive.”
“I just kind of had a fire lit under me,” Ellis said of her team’s bounce-back after the 6-0 loss in the opening set. ”I’m competitive, you know, and I really don’t like to lose, so it was just making sure I did the best I can.