Niwot girls tennis hosting individual regionals May 3-4

Now out of contention in the Class 4A team state tournament, Niwot High School girls tennis is focused on qualifying its lines for the individual championships.

Fellow Region 5 schools, Centaurus, Erie, Northridge, Silver Creek, Skyline, Standley Lake and Thornton, will be at Niwot High May 3-4 to compete for Individual State Tournament spots in the Regional Tournament. The top two lines earn a ticket to the State Tournament in each of the seven Regional events (1 through 3 singles and 1 through 4 doubles).

Head coach Aimee Irwin is optimistic that her singles players will secure a high seed for state and she also expects her doubles teams to qualify. Niwot's #1 singles player, Alys Pop, however, "might" miss regionals and won't compete in the State Tournament due to IB testing, according to Irwin.

Looking at Niwot's doubles teams, Irwin hopes that both sophomore Masha Oshmyan (3 doubles) and Caitlyn Carmichael (4 doubles) can continue their upward trajectories at regionals.

"Our 3 and 4 doubles - Masha Oshmyan and Caitlyn Carmichael - have really stepped it up toward the end of the season," Irwin said. "Masha is pretty new to tennis. It's been like a year, but she's athletic and improving a lot. Caitlyn, her attitude, she's really fired up and ready to go and she's peaking at the right time. Hopefully, we can carry that through to regionals."

The Class 4A Individual State Tournament is set for May 11-13 at Pueblo City Park.

In the Team State Tournament, No. 5 seed Niwot opened with a 7-0 sweep of No. 12 Dakota Ridge in the first round on April 26 before falling to No. 4 seed Thompson Valley, 4-3, in the quarterfinals April 28. The Cougars swept all three singles matches but couldn't muster a doubles win on the Eagles' home court.

"Thompson Valley, they're strong," Irwin said. "They have got a bunch of good athletes from head to toe and they definitely played well. We didn't quite capitalize on what we needed to do."

Pop (1 singles), Saha Kolli (2 singles) and Tracy Yu (3 singles) each beat their respective Thompson Valley opponent in two sets while Samantha Zacky and Cassie Chen (1 doubles); Lucie Kareus and Magnolia Valentine (2 doubles); Oshmyan and Harper Behmer (3 doubles); and Carmichael and Sarada Gundavarapu (4 doubles) all lost in two sets. Niwot, though, was missing half of its typical No. 1 doubles team as sophomore Anne Haley was competing in a club volleyball tournament the same day.

"The doubles teams all learned a lot from that match," Irwin said. "You obviously learn more (from losing) than from winning and just little things that we need to work on in the next couple of days before individual state and then obviously before Pueblo - simple communication type stuff. They're ready for regionals, so that's good."