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06/11/2014 12:00 AMIt appeared as though the Westbrook girls' tennis squad had all the answers this spring after handily defeating every opponent it faced during the regular season and winning the Shoreline Conference crown for the second time in three years. These feats landed the Knights a spot in the Class S State Tournament final with hopes of duplicating 2012, a year which also saw Westbrook go undefeated and win the program's first-ever state crown. It was not meant to be on the afternoon of June 6 when the Knights faced No. 3 seed Northwest Catholic in Newington in a cut-throat battle that saw top-seeded Westbrook suffer a heartbreaking 4-3 loss-its only one of the campaign.
"We knew it would be a 3-4, 4-3 going in. We were trying to figure out where we were going to get the points. It was strange we got three quick and then we were struggling to get the fourth, but you have to give it to Northwest Catholic-they came back in every single match," said Coach Paula Fitzgerald. "They had lost the first set and came back in that second doubles match and that was the key. When you consider all the three-set matches, that's just a great match that unfortunately didn't go our way. You're playing the state finals-you know you're not going to walk in and win easily. It's tougher on the players because when you don't lose during the season, it hits you harder I think."
It took about an hour for Westbrook to win the first three matches, but that fourth and final victory was elusive for the Knights as Northwest Catholic battled for three sets in the final trio of matches before taking the decisive victory at second doubles.
The first victories of the day for the Knights came at No. 1 singles, 4 singles, and third doubles. Freshman Casey Burns defeated Anna Case for a 6-0, 6-2 win at No. 1 singles, which sealed Burns' individual feat of remaining unbeaten for the entire campaign.
"We had a lot of heart going into this. We played our best tennis today, I think, but they played their best tennis too," said Burns. "There's nothing you can really do about it."
Another victory came from McKenna Atkinson at No. 4 singles with her 6-2, 6-3 defeat of Mary-Kate Bogeus, and then the third doubles tandem of Olivia Lawton and Kaitlyn Luft beat out Gigi Gionnone and Emily Grandell 6-4, 6-0. Callie Burns then lost at No. 3 singles to Charlotte Carew 6-3, 6-2 and Westbrook held a 3-1 advantage with three matches still going.
Senior captain Liza Goldberg had her hands full at No. 2 singles as for over an hour-and-a-half, she battled Angela Miguel for three sets. Goldberg lost the first set 6-2, but came back to win the second 6-2 before falling in the final set 6-4 in a hard-fought match.
"In a match this close, there are four of us that really lost and tennis is hard. There's a lot of individual, but it's still a team sport. We all lost today together, but we won a lot of matches this season together, too," said Goldberg. "I knew I could be the fourth point-I wanted to do it for my coach and for my team, but it wasn't meant to be."
With the match score sitting at 3-2 in favor of the Knights, both the first and second doubles teams commanded all the attention as both were deciding factors and each had split sets. Anna Schneider and Lydia Murphy at No. 1 doubles lost the first set 6-3, but fought back to win the second 7-6 (7-4) before losing the third 6-4 to Grace Deneen and Rachel Poirler.
With the match tied at 3-3, all eyes were on the far court as the second doubles team of Annie Raunikar and Angelina Raffone was in a three-set clash with Amy Cao and Diana Cao. Raunikar and Raffone took the first set 6-2, but Northwest Catholic won the next two 4-2 and 6-3 almost two hours later to clinch the championship.
"The other coach and I were saying, 'Imagine all the pressure these kids are under.' But we've talked about this with them, about when they split sets-this is what an athlete dreams of; you want to control your own fate and you'd rather not just be sitting on the sidelines waiting for someone else. At least you could say I got a chance to try to do this. And they all put it out there," said Fitzgerald, whose squad defeated Old Saybrook, Stonington, and Valley Regional 6-1 in the earlier rounds of the tournament. "No one should walk away here thinking it's my fault or I didn't play well today-they played well this entire tournament. Northwest just played a tiny bit better."