There’s a long road to the 3A State Dual Tennis Championship.
But after Wednesday, the road may seem like a piece of cake considering the long trip that awaits the Orange women’s tennis team.
The Lady Panthers, who shared the Central Carolina Conference championship with Walter Williams, will take a four-hour road trip to Kill Devil Hills to face First Flight this afternoon. The pairings for the 32-team 3A State Dual Team Tournament were released on Monday afternoon by the North Carolina High School Athletic Association.
The Lady Panthers, already with a school-record 18 wins against two losses, received an 11-seed. First Flight (10-1) tied with Holmes High for the 3A/2A Northeastern Coastal Conference championship with a 7-1 league mark.
The winner of Orange/First Flight will face the winner of Fike and Croatan in the second round.
Orange goes into the match on a school-record 14-match winning streak. The Lady Panthers last loss came against Williams on August 31 when they fell 8-1.
The dual tournament continues a busy period for the Lady Panthers. Last Thursday, they competed in the Central Carolina Conference Tournament at the Burlington Tennis Center. The conference tournament has ceased crowning a singles and doubles champion and is primarily an event to qualify players for the Mideast Regionals, which will take place this weekend.
Orange’s top doubles team of Shannon and Erin Sollars received a top-seed for the conference tournament and didn’t play any matches. Instead, they automatically qualified for the regional tournament.
The same applies to Cedar Ridge’s top singles player, Cameron Mayhew, who was the only Red Wolf to qualify for regionals.
The Orange doubles team of Makayla Davis and Sydney Rogers qualified for regionals. Davis and Rogers, seeded fifth, defeated Person’s Zita Tong and Kalei Stephens 6-0, 6-0 in the opening round. With a spot at regionals on the line, Davis and Rogers defeated Cedar Ridge’s Catherine Ballenger and Ella Caltabiano 6-4, 6-4. This season, Davis and Rogers were 9-4 as a team.
The Sollars sisters are 14-3 as a doubles team this season.
In the singles tournament, Cedar Ridge sophomore Adeline Cummings defeated Orange senior Madelyn Horn in the opening round 6-0, 6-1. Walter Williams Jaden Wilson knocked off Cummings in the second round. Cummings, a sophomore, ended her season with eleven singles wins.
Orange senior Isabel Jones opened the singles tournament with a victory over Isabel Baker 6-1, 6-0. In the second round, Eastern Alamance’s Rocio Rosa defeated Jones 6-3, 6-0.
Cedar Ridge’s doubles team of Ballenger and Caltabiano opened with a victory over a team from Eastern Alamance.
Mayhew, the younger sister of Cedar Ridge’s conference champion Josh Mayhew, will go into regionals with momentum. She started as the top singles player for the Red Wolves in each of the dual matches for the second half of the season. She defeated every #1 player from all the conference teams, including Walter Willams’ Abigail Brown, who retired in the second set of their match on October 10.
Williams earned the #1 seed into the 3A State Dual Tournament. They will host Harnett Central in the opening round on Wednesday.