The Emporia High girls tennis team opened its season with a third-place finish among eight teams at the Derby Invitational.
The Spartans, led by No. 1 singles player Jordan Sosa’s third-place finish, logged 16 points, 10 behind winner Salina Central and five behind second-place finisher Hutchinson. Sosa defeated Emily Yoder of Hutchinson 8-1, lost to Salina Central’s Abby Morris 8-1, then beat Lauren Boline of Derby 8-4.
Rose Nasrazadani, playing in the No. 2 singles spot, finished in fourth place. Nasrazadani scored an 8-2 victory over Danielle Manchester of Wichita Northwest before losing 8-2 to both Derby’s Christina Miller and Vicky Tran of Wichita Southeast.
The Spartans’ No. 1 doubles team of Whitney Page and Kaitlin Pedersen finished in fifth place. Page and Pedersen defeated Wichita Southeast’s doubles team 8-0 but lost to Wichita Northwest’s 8-5 and to Derby’s 8-7 (7-5). The No. 2 doubles squad, Tiffany Ma and Ashley Gitchel, took fourth. They defeated Wichita Southeast 8-5 and lost to Hutchinson 8-4 and Wichita Collegiate 8-5.
Following the postponement of its first two meets, EHS coach Melinda Flohr was glad to finally have the season under way.
“I saw a good level of intensity out of the girls, which is something that we have really been stressing in practice,” she said. “We have a little better idea of some things that we need to work on, which is also a positive. It was good to finally get some actual matches played.”
Emporia will host a home invitational on Saturday at 9 a.m.