A total of six players from Jefferson City's three high schools will compete today in the Class 2 and 3 girls tennis state singles and doubles tournaments at Cooper Tennis Complex in Springfield.
State qualifiers for the Jefferson City Lady Jays are seniors Madelyn Becker and Sudhi Kumar and junior Sandhiya Baskar. Qualifying for the Helias Lady Crusaders are seniors Lainie Mantle and Kylie Bernskoetter, while freshman Sarah Wilde is the first state qualifier in program history for the Capital City Lady Cavaliers.
Baskar will be making her second straight appearance in state singles after finishing 0-2 in the Class 2 tournament last season. She will open the Class 3 singles tournament today against Parkway South's Khayli Buckels in the first round of the bracket.
Buckels, a sophomore, won the Class 3 District 2 singles title, defeating Lafayette: Wildwood's Thrisha Kosaraju 6-2, 6-0 in the championship match. Buckels was a state qualifier in the Class 2 doubles tournament last season, finishing in sixth place.
Baskar has an 18-3 record in singles play this season, with her three losses all coming against Rock Bridge's Maggie Lin, who is also a state qualifier. Baskar finished runner-up to Lin in the Class 3 District 4 singles tournament, losing 5-7, 4-6.
Baskar won seven regular-season matches 8-0 and another at 10-0. She has won 23 of the 29 sets she has played and also won the singles title last month in the Sedalia Smith-Cotton Invitational.
The winner of the first-round match between Baskar and Buckels will advance to the state quarterfinals and face the winner of the first-round match between John Burroughs' Lily Walther and Fort Zumwalt West's Gabriella Colette St. Jean. The loser will fall into the consolation bracket of the double-elimination tournament.
Becker and Kumar, who are making their first state tournament appearance, are scheduled to face Pembroke Hill's Adella Castaner and Alisha Castaner, a senior, in the first round.
The Pembroke Hill duo won the Class 3 District 7 title with a 6-0, 6-0 win against St. Teresa's Meredith Mason and Lily Mason in the title match. Adella Castaner, a junior, won the Class 1 singles state title in 2018, while Alisha Castaner, a senior, reached the Class 1 singles state semifinals last year.
Becker and Kumar have posted an 8-4 record when playing together in doubles. They finished runner-up in Class 3 District 4, losing to Rock Bridge's Christine Neol Ramesh and Aparna Sivaraman 2-6, 1-6 in the district final.
Overall this season, Kumar is 15-8 in doubles competition and Becker has an 11-6 record. Kumar finished runner-up in the Smith-Cotton Invitational in doubles play.
Mantle and Bernskoetter, who are making their first state tournament appearance, will play against Incarnate Word's Grace Brown and Erin Coleman in the first round of the Class 2 doubles state tournament.
Brown, a freshman, and Coleman, a sophomore, won the Class 2 District 3 title with a 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 win against Mikaela Mikulec and Rachel Li of MICDS in the championship match.
Mantle and Bernskoetter took second place in the Class 2 District 4 doubles tournament, losing 0-6, 4-6 to Liberty: Wentzville's Isabella Gamm and Grace Flinn in the title match.
The Helias duo is 6-4 when partnered together, and they won their last match together last Wednesday, an 8-5 decision in the team district match against Liberty: Wentzville.
Wilde will make her state debut in the Class 2 singles tournament against Glendale sophomore Lucy Huang.
Huang, who reached the state quarterfinals of the Class 2 tournament last year and fell one win shy of an all-state medal, won the Class 2 District 5 singles title 6-2, 6-1 against Rolla's Faith Taylor.
Wilde finished runner-up in singles in the Class 2 District 4 Tournament, falling 3-6, 2-6 to Smith-Cotton's Caroline Matz.
Wilde posted a 17-5 record in singles play this season, with all of her losses coming against Central Missouri Activities Conference opponents. Early in the season, she posted a 4-0 record to take first place in the singles portion of the Waynesville Tournament, and she has won eight of her last nine matches heading into state.
Play begins at 9 a.m. today. The Class 2 and 3 singles and doubles tournaments will conclude Friday with the championship matches at noon. The top eight finishers in each of the 16-entry brackets will receive all-state honors.