CULVER — Bill Mountford woke up at 4:30 a.m. Saturday and couldn’t go back to sleep. Ashi Amalnathan was so nervous beforehand that she threw up.
This wasn’t a normal semistate championship match for the South Bend Saint Joseph girls tennis team. Not with who they were facing — and the bitter history that came with it.
It was a chance for the Huskies to exorcise some demons. Vanquish the boogeyman. Get rid of some of the bad taste in their mouths from the last three years.
In a 90-minute stretch at Culver Academies, they did just that.
The No. 1-ranked Huskies knocked off the three-time defending state champion Carmel, 4-1, avenging season-ending losses at the hands of the Greyhounds each of the last three years. More importantly, it’s the program’s 11th semistate title overall and fourth in a row, advancing them to the state quarterfinals this Friday against No. 4 Jasper.
“Carmel is Carmel,” said Mountford, the veteran head coach of the Huskies. “They’re not as great as they’ve been the last few years, but they’re still awfully good. … Even though our matchups are a little more favorable for us this year, it still was something that we needed to get over that hump. We’re excited to have done that.”
Even though the final score looked like a comfortable win for Saint Joseph, Carmel didn’t go quietly on the final two courts.
Amalnathan dropped a couple of games in the second set to go down, 3-4, before winning the next three to pull out a 6-4 win. And at No. 1 doubles, senior Dani Graham and freshman Libby Yergler let a couple games get away from them as well before shutting the door for a 6-2 victory in the second set.
“I thought, ‘Oh no, here comes Carmel,’” Mountford admitted. “I’m just really excited and really proud of the girls for getting past that.”
Amalnathan said she was nervous beforehand because of how last year’s matches with Carmel went. The Huskies won in the regular season – only for the Greyhounds to get revenge with a 3-2 win in the state finals. Amalnathan was one of the matches that flipped for Saint Joseph from the regular season to the playoffs, and she didn’t want that to happen again Saturday.
“Just playing them again in the postseason, this was our final chance against them in a way,” Amalnathan said. “Once I threw up, though, I was totally fine. I felt a lot better.”
The senior noted another thing that she felt helped the Huskies get over the hump Saturday.
“This is closer to home for us, so we were able to bring more people,” Amalnathan said. “Having the crowd was really nice.”
How they advanced:Saint Joseph girls tennis gets past LaPorte, rival awaits at semistate
Saint Joseph claimed victory at all three singles spots and No. 1 doubles. Senior Molly Bellia was first off the court with a 6-1, 6-1 win at No. 1 singles, followed shortly by junior Anni Amalnathan with a 6-0, 6-1 triumph at No. 3 singles.
Bellia is now 24-2 individually this season.
“She played a very clean, strong match,” said Mountford of Bellia. “We watched a little film of the last time she played Nora (Perkins), and she shored up some of the errors she had last time. She really came to play today.”
While getting over the Carmel hump was important for Saint Joseph, there is still work to be done. The Huskies will have to win three matches in two days next weekend if they want to win their first state championship since 2010.
“I feel like, in a way, (next weekend) might be a little harder for us because it was such a big goal for us to beat Carmel,” Ashi Amalnathan said. “But, for us, the ultimate goal is to win state overall. We have to focus each day on working hard and not taking anything for granted.”
Full results: No. 1 singles: Molly Bellia (S) def. Nora Perkins (C), 6-1, 6-1; No. 2 singles: Ashi Amalnathan (S) def. Manogna Pagadala (C), 6-0, 6-4; No. 3 singles: Anni Amalnathan (S) def. Grace Kim (C), 6-0, 6-1; No. 1 doubles: Dani Graham/Libby Yergler (S) def. Addison Joyce/Gabby Hall (C), 6-1, 6-2; No. 2 doubles: Sydney Carroll/Brylie Price (C) def. Anna Walsh/Ella Michaels (S), 6-1, 6-1.
Penn loses semistate heartbreaker to Carroll
Another area girls tennis team, Penn, dropped a 3-2 match to Fort Wayne Carroll in a semistate match at Homestead High School.
The Kingsmen won at No. 1 singles and No. 2 doubles. Junior Aileen Hu won 6-0, 6-2 at the top spot, while sophomore Scarlett Biever and junior Jaanavi Kaushik triumphed 6-0, 6-4 in the doubles position.
No. 2 singles ended up being the decisive match, as Penn senior Anna Yoon and Carroll sophomore Kenna Shoup battled in a three-set thriller. After Yoon rallied to win the first set, 7-5, she dropped the second one, 7-6 (8-6 tiebreaker) and third one, 6-2.
Other match results were Megan McMillen (Carroll) beating Samantha Pischalko (Penn), 6-2, 6-2, at No. 3 singles, and Riley Glassley/Chloe Ceresa (Carroll) defeating Maren Woelfer/Clarissa Schmitt (Penn), 6-3, 6-3 at No. 1 doubles.
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