4th Region Tennis Teams Look to Make Noise at State Tournament
By Perry Swack
A talented and experienced group of 4th Region Tennis players will descend upon central Kentucky over the course of the next week with their eyes on the prize of a state championship. It all begins Tuesday, May 28 with the boys’ singles and doubles scheduled to begin at the UK Boone/Downing Tennis Complex in Lexington. Simultaneously, the girls’ singles will begin at Berea College in Berea and the girls’ doubles tournament will start at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond. All four tournaments will continue on Wednesday on the campus of University of Kentucky before concluding there on Thursday. The new team championships will also be contested at the Boone/Downing complex on June 3 and 4. In the past, the entirety of the state tournament was held at Top Seed Tennis Club in Nicholasville.
In the girls’ singles, Greenwood and South Warren will each field two competitors. The region champion Chloe Dickens will begin her state tournament at 9:15 AM (EST). The seventh grader from Greenwood will face off with Daviess County freshman Emmie Kate Williams. Lady Gators and region runner-up Addison Hales will face off with Central Hardin’s Claire Yates at 9:00 AM. As for the region semifinalists who also qualified for the state tournament, South Warren senior Luna Poole will take on Mayfield’s Molly Null at 9:15 AM and Lady Spartan junior Morgan Robertson will face Bullitt East’s Paige Halbrook at 10:00 AM.
Up the road at Eastern Kentucky University, the girls’ doubles will begin at 8:00 AM as region runners-up Ainsley Stobaugh and Cesca Poole (South Warren) will take on a doubles duo from North Laurel High. Region semifinalists Kennedy Carter and Allison Ford of Allen County-Scottsville will face off against George Rogers Clark High at 10:15 AM, while South’s Peyton Lemily and Paisley Harris battle a duo from Apollo High at 10:30 AM. The region champions from Greenwood, Arden Dethridge and Avery Overmohle take on Mercy Academy at 10:45 AM. Overmohle reached the doubles’ quarterfinals in 2023 and the Round of 16 in 2022.
Even further north at the University of Kentucky, the boys’ singles and doubles will begin on Tuesday. After winning the region doubles’ title in 2022 and 2023 (including a run to the state finals in ‘23), Greenwood’s Gary Zheng captured the singles’ crown this year with a victory over Bowling Green’s Houston St. John. Zheng begins his state tournament against Oldham County’s Avery Thomas at 9:00 AM. St. John will start at 8:00 AM against Pulaski County’s Ben Hampton. As for the region semifinalists, Greenwood’s Tyler Sherrod takes on South Laurel’s Will Wagers and South’s Jackson Donovan faces off with Scott High’s Mario Carpio Fernandez. Should Donovan and Sherrod win their opening round match, they would play one another in the Round of 32 on Tuesday afternoon at 1:00 PM.
The boys’ doubles region champions will begin their state tournament at 10:15 AM. Greenwood won its fifth-consecutive doubles title as Wyatt Packard and Grant Dunn knocked off South Warren’s Antonio Noble and Salem Harris. The Gator duo will face off with Madisonville-North Hopkins. Noble and Harris will battle with West Jessamine at 11:15 AM. Region semifinalists from Metcalfe County Colton Huffman and Cabot Boling will take on a duo from Woodford County at 11:30 AM. South’s Christian Lawyer/Braden Coley were scheduled to face off with Hazard High at 10:15 AM but as of Monday afternoon, it says the Spartans have defaulted on this match.
As for the new team competition, the Lady Spartans will face off with Central Hardin on June 3 at Berea College. If South wins its opening round match, it will play the winner of Bullitt East and George Rogers Clark. While the opening round and quarterfinals will be at Berea College, the semifinals and finals will be at the University of Kentucky the following day. The entirety of the boys’ event will be at UK, as Greenwood takes on St. Xavier in the first round on June 3. A victory over St. X would move Greenwood into the quarterfinals where it would play Southwestern or Knott County Central. Like the girls, the semifinals and finals are on June 4 at UK.
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