Oct. 12, 2007

Gibbons advances in league tourney

CEDAR RAPIDS—Central College freshman Steph Gibbons (Ankeny) advanced to the Flight B singles semifinals to highlight an otherwise rocky day for the Dutch at the Iowa Conference women’s tennis tourney Friday.

The league tourney is following a new format, with three singles flights and two doubles flights. The top 30 players are in the A flight with 25 players in the B flight and 29 in the C flight. In doubles the top 16 duos are in the A flight with 24 teams in the B flight.

Gibbons raced past Molly Hepworth of Loras 6-0, 6-1 and Haley Pins of Coe 6-1, 6-3 before outlasting Luther’s Michelle Finlon in the quarterfinals 6-7 (2), 6-2, 1-0 (8). She’ll take on Luther’s Sara Dale in the Flight B semifinals Saturday morning.                                                                                                                                  

Whitney Visser (senior, Sioux Falls, S.D., Lincoln HS) also won a first-round Flight B singles match before being ousted.

But Central’s four entries chosen for Flight A were each first-round casualties. Hillary Baehr (junior, Des Moines, Roosevelt HS) was ousted by Luther’s Kelsie Allen 6-1, 6-2 while Katie Moklestad (senior, Boone) fell to Coe’s Andrea Schupbach 6-2, 6-4, Jenn Knobbe (senior, Carroll, Kuemper Catholic HS) tumbled to Luther’s Molly Beyer 6-1, 6-4 and Faith Bliss (sophomore, Ottumwa) dropped a tight match to Coe’s Katie Yakes 3-6, 6-3, 1-0 (9).

Likewise Central’s other two Flight B entrants, Katie Williamson (freshman, Pella) and Laura Bade (junior, Boone), fell in the first round.

The Dutch did have some additional success in Flight C. Amanda Haley (junior, Corning) coasted past Jamie Cota of Dubuque 6-0, 6-0, then ousted Buena Vista’s Jennifer Flint 6-2, 7-6 (6) but was outscored in the quarterfinals by Simpson’s Jill Berner 6-2, 6-0. Carissa Bane (freshman, Des Moines, Southeast Polk HS) defeated Coe’s Kalie Rietchek 6-4, 6-0 before losing. Brigitte Newman (freshman, Albia) also lasted until the second round, defeating Buena Vista’s Nicole Hansen 6-1, 6-0. Catie Dau (freshman, Eldridge, North Scott HS) and Katie Weis (sophomore, Clinton) were sidelined in the first round.

Doubles results—Central was 0-3 in first round doubles matches in Flight A as the teams of Gibbons-Moklestad, Bliss-Knobbe and Visser-Baehr made early exits.

The Dutch picked up one win in Flight B doubles. Weis and Haley were 8-3 victors over Kristina Dufour-Carrie Hoskey of Loras but were ousted by Luther’s Fran Fairfield-Justine Allen 8-3. The duos of Williamson-Bade and Newman-Dau each dropped their first match.

All-conference honors go to all A flight singles quarterfinalists and A flight doubles semifinalists.

The individual tourney has no bearing on team pairings for next weekend’s six-team league championship tournament at the University of Iowa courts in Iowa City, which utilizes a dual meet format. Seeds will be announced next week but Central will likely carry the No. 3 seed.