NHS Girls take 5th in state tennis

Senior Anna Sallee led the Niwot girls tennis team to a fifth-place finish at the Class 4A state tournament in Pueblo May 12-14. Sallee took home the No. 2 singles state title with a hard-fought 6-3, 5-7, 7-5 win over Pine Creek senior Manoela Amantini Quintanilha. Sallee finished second in No. 2 singles in 2021.

Sallee advanced easily through the first two rounds, 6-0, 6-0 victories over both opponents, from Thomas Jefferson and Windsor, respectively. Her semi-final victory came over Kent Denver senior Annika Berry, 6-1, 6-2.

Alys Pop, Niwot's No. 1 singles player, advanced easily through the first two rounds, winning 6-0, 6-3 and 6-2, 6-3, over opponents from Palmer Ridge and Durango, respectively. In the semi-finals, Pop lost to Cheyenne Mountain's Maya Michalski, 6-3, 6-0. Pop, a junior, lost to Pine Creek freshman Ava Lewis, 7-6, 6-1 in the consolation finals.

Between them, Sallee and Pop scored more points (26) than any other team's top two players. At No. 3 singles, Cougar senior Georgia Lang scored seven points for her team, winning her first round 6-1, 6-0 before falling in the quarter-finals to eventual state champion Keelin Sills, a freshman from Pine Creek, 6-4, 6-0. Lang battled back through the playbacks, winning the first round, 6-3, 6-0. She won again in a hard-fought match, 7-5, 6-2 in the next round over Genevieve Berning, a senior from Lewis Palmer. Lang eventually ended up in fourth place, with a 6-1, 6-2 loss in the consolation finals to Hailey Javernick, a senior from Cheyenne Mountain.

The Cougars picked up one point each in No. 2 doubles and No. 3 doubles, which was enough to give them 35 points as a team, two more than Mullen, which scored all but 2 of its 33 points in doubles matches.

In No. 1 doubles, Niwot's Samantha Zacky and Anne Haley failed to score when they lost a heartbreaker in the opening match, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6.

In No. 2 doubles, the Cougar duo of Cassie Chen and Tracy Yu won their first round handily, 6-1, 6-4, but fell in the second round, 7-5, 6-1 to Cheyenne Mountain's duo, which eventually placed third.

Niwot's Harper Behmer and Julia Price battled back to win their first match at No. 3 doubles, 1-6, 6-3, 7-6, but lost in the second round to eventual runner-up Kent Denver, 6-2, 6-1. Behmer and Price lost in the playbacks, 6-0, 6-4, to a duo from Windsor. The Cougars failed to qualify their No. 4 doubles team for state.