Four members of the Vashon High School girls’ tennis team qualified for the district tournament held on May 19 and took home a second-place trophy.

The tournament combined the top finishers from the Nisqually and Olympic leagues, which both had qualifying tournaments a week earlier. At stake were not only team and individual placings in the district, but the top two finishers in singles and doubles would advance to the state tournament next week in Yakima. Four Vashon girls qualified for the district tournament: Sierra Richter and Taryn Mulvihill in singles and Emmaline Wittwer and Lizzie Maciejewski as a doubles team. With the exception of Maciejewski who is a sophomore, all the girls are seniors and were potentially playing their last high school matches. The tournament was held at Tacoma’s Sprinker Tennis Center and nice, but cool weather allowed matches to be played both indoors and outdoors which helped the tournament move along as there was never a shortage of courts.

Likely due to a difficult draw and an early start, the day started out rough for the Vashon girls as Richter and the doubles team of Wittwer and Maciejewski both lost in the first round. However, since the tournament is a double-elimination format, the players continue until losing twice. Richter and the doubles team found their rhythm and played much better tennis in the second round, both winning convincingly. Mulvihill won her first round match and advanced in the front half of the draw before also winning her second round match, eliminating the second seeded player from Coupeville and advancing to the final.

In the third round, Richter ran into a tough, motivated opponent and was eliminated, finishing in fifth place for the day.

The doubles team advanced again with a very nice win which ironically earned them a fourth round rematch with the team they had lost to earlier. This was a strong Klahowya team which had been to state last year, and their experience payed off. Despite a nice run in the second set, the Vashon duo was eliminated and finished in fourth place for the day.

Mulvihill’s final against the number-one seeded player from Charles Wright was a rematch of the last two years league and district finals. In a very well played and close match, the Charles Wright player prevailed, but Mulvihill advanced to state with a well-earned second place finish.

Every point earned by Pirate players was important as it counted toward the team result. Overall, the Pirates earned a second-place trophy as a team, which was an excellent result especially considering several schools had more entries into the tournament. A regular season record of 10-5 and players advancing all the way to state is a great result and speaks to high level of play and hard work at practice by the entire team all year.

Mulvihill will play in the state tournament Friday and Saturday, as will VHS boys’ tennis player Josh Tillman who qualified for the tournament earlier in the fall.

— Pat Mulvihill is the assistant coach of the VHS girls’ tennis team.