Platte County understood the assignment of trying to reverse the result of a regular season dual but just didn’t have enough to flip the script in Wednesday’s Class 2 District 8 final.
Platte County freshman Clare Hayter hits a shot during a match in the Class 2 District 8 championship dual Wednesday against St. Pius X at St. Pius X Athletic Complex in Kansas City.
St. Pius X repeated as team champion with a 5-0 victory at St. Pius X Athletic Complex in Kansas City. The Warriors swept the doubles and then took the first two singles matches to end the proceedings in a rematch of last year’s final.
Platte County’s season ended with a 13-7 record, but the Pirates entered on a nine-dual winning streak, which incidentally started following a 9-0 loss to St. Pius X in late September.
“Great season overall,” Platte County first-year coach Scott Blakley said. “We felt really good. We did everything right in the warmup — felt confident, had belief. We went out there and quite frankly, I think even the girls would say that it wasn’t necessarily that we did anything wrong. The St. Pius X girls played excellent.
“We felt like we had a good shot going in.”
Having played close in doubles the first time around, Platte County hoped to pull at least one victory, but St. Pius X’s combination of singles state qualifiers won the No. 1 match over the Pirates’ district doubles championship team of junior Ellie Kaser and sophomore Macie Keith. The Warriors eventually swept and needed just two wins to close out the match.
Platte County sophomore Katelyn Newberry hits a shot in the Class 2 District 8 championship dual Wednesday against St. Pius X at St. Pius X Athletic Complex in Kansas City.
Platte County junior Macy Doll (No. 5) and freshman Clare Hayter (No. 6) both won opening sets in the best-of-three format, but St. Pius X finished the sweep with victories at No. 3 and No. 4 with the other four matches halted at that point with the outcome decided.
“Down 0-3 after dubs is a tall order,” Blakley said. “We battled.”
The clear-cut No. 2 seed in a seven-team bracket, Platte County dominated a first round matchup with Lincoln Prep 5-0 on Monday and then dispatched third-seeded Winnetonka 5-1 in Tuesday’s semifinal with both played at home. The Pirates continued to use seven players in the lineup with Kaser, Keith, junior Lillian Goodale (No. 3), sophomore Jayne Muir (No. 4), Doll and Hayter in singles.
Muir and sophomore Katelyn Newberry became Platte County’s preferred No. 3 doubles team almost in sync with a stretch of 10 wins in a span of 12 duals after a 3-5 start. The move became even more permanent when junior Addison Fleming suffered a season-ending dislocated knee cap during a dual win over Ruskin.
Against Lincoln Prep, Kaser and Hayter were the deciding singles winners for Platte County, while Kaser and Keith secured the much tougher outcome with darkness starting to set in against Winnetonka.
Platte County sophomore Macie Keith hits a shot in the Class 2 District 8 championship dual Wednesday against St. Pius X at St. Pius X Athletic Complex in Kansas City.
“They gave us a battle, honestly,” Blakley said.
Platte County reached the district championship dual for a third consecutive season and sought a second playoff appearance in program history, the first coming in 2023.
Instead, only Kaser and Keith have matches left this season. Platte County advanced at least one individual entrant to state for a fourth consecutive season with six of the seven to qualify in that span in doubles. Kaser and Keith have the opportunity to become the first in program history to win a match at state with the Pirates currently 0-12 all time dating back to Lisa Wyrwinski and Rachel Bumstead’s appearance in 2009.
Kaser joined Olivia Holbrook and Addie Mayne as Platte County’s only two-time state qualifiers. The Pirates didn’t have any individual wins at state prior to Maggie McBratney’s run to an eighth-place medal in singles last season.
This year’s Class 2 MSHSAA Tennis Championships individual tournament will be held Friday and Saturday, October 24 and 25 at Cooper Tennis Complex in Springfield.
