Lady Crusaders advance four in state tennis

Lady Jays out of tourney

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - The Helias Lady Crusaders have two singles players and one doubles team still alive after the first day of the MSHSAA Individual Girls Tennis Championships, while both Jefferson City doubles teams were eliminated.

Competing in the Class 1 event at the Cooper Tennis Complex, Helias' Ashley Dowden and Mary Conley survived elimination, as did the doubles team of Abby Dowden and Lauren Highfill.

Ashley Dowden began the day by falling 6-2, 6-1 to Pembroke Hill's Yurie Heard, but she bounced back with a 6-1, 6-0 win against Lindsay Garcia of John Burroughs in an elimination match. Then in the consolation bracket semifinals, she ripped Kiki Peters of John Burroughs by a 6-1, 6-3 score.

Also in singles, Conley started the day with a 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 win against Taylor Crawford of Marshall. Conley then fell 6-1, 6-2 to Annika Menke of Windsor: Imperial in the quarterfinals.

That dropped Conley to the consolation quarterfinals, where she defeated Hadley Hilburn of Kennett 6-3, 6-3.

Conley and Ashley Dowden will face each other in a singles consolation semifinal today.

In doubles, Abby Dowden and Highfill went 2-1 to stay alive. They started out with a 6-0, 6-0 loss to Connor Cassity and Cameron Freeman of Clayton, then posted a 6-3, 6-2 win against Kelly Westphal and Jozie Reeter of Chillicothe.

The duo then beat Kathryn Shetley and Heidi Shetley of Kennett 6-7 (7-5 tiebreaker), 7-5, 6-4 to stay alive.

In the Class 2 portion of the championships, both Jefferson City teams went 1-2 on the day.

Eden Hoogveld and Paige Smith started out with a 6-3, 7-5 loss to Tess Lovig and Hannah Pohl of Rock Bridge. They followed it up by beating Cami Robinson and Katie Jasen of Ozark 6-1, 6-1. But their tournament came to a close with a 6-4, 6-4 loss to Katarina Rosenberger and Alex Rosenberger of Lindbergh.

The Lady Jays' team of Kelly Raithel and Kirsten Schmidt lost 6-0, 6-2 to the Lee's Summit North team of Logan Morrissey and Camryn Parnell. Raithel and Schmidt bounced back with a 6-4, 6-0 win against Hannah Nelson and Hannah Todd of Nixa, but got eliminated with a 7-6, 6-1 loss to Chloe Clement and Natalie Thimgan of Staley.