Wooster's Ava Mathur owns the day at Div. I Springside Sectional

AKRON — Ava Mathur played like she has all season, which meant good things for her as she and her Wooster teammates competed at the Division I tennis sectionals at Springside Athletic Club in Akron.

Mathur dominated all day, winning every match and advancing to district play as a top seed. Her teammates came storming out of the gate as well, winning all their opening round matches.

"Everyone won a first-round match," said Generals coach Justin Crooks. "It's just really exciting that everyone is playing a lot better at the end of the season, and this is the best time to do it. We worked really hard this year to win as many matches as possible."

The only Wooster tennis player to qualify for district play on Thursday was Mathur, the No. 1 seed in singles play, who certainly proved her ranking. She didn't yield a game all day as she won back-to-back 6-0, 6-0 sets to advance to district play on Thursday.

"She cruised," said Crooks. "She is a phenomenal tennis player, and I am excited to see how far she can go."

Just missing cut for district play were Minnie Pozefsky and Alexia Kakanuru, who both opened with 2-0 starts and were just one win away from qualifying for districts.

Pozefsky opened with back-to-back 6-1 sets to win her first match and then hammered out a 6-3, 6-2 win to meet the No. 4-seed in Walsh Jesuit's Rachael McHale. In her final match, the Generals senior battled hard before falling 6-1, 6-0.

"Minnie had an outstanding career and I appreciate what she did for the program, winning three Ohio Cardinal Conference Championship," said Crooks. "She had two good wins today and really battled."

Kakanuru, who is no stranger to success at the sectional level, opened her first run as a singles player with a 6-1, 6-2 win. A year ago, she advanced to district action as part of a doubles team with Emma Boreman, which she credits a lot for her success this year.

"Playing with Emma really benefitted me a lot," said Kakanuru. "I speak up for myself a lot more, I am more aggressive, I don't like giving points away and it's helped me strategize a lot more. I also can move people around better and I have better angles, because in doubles when you're at the net, it's all about angles."

Her angles game proved to be a good strategy in her second match where she won 6-1, 6-0 against Cuyahoga Falls' Saraphina Groh, who tried to attack the net at every opportunity.

"I thought about killing it and it wasn't working out," said Kakanuru. "So, then I could either lob it, which worked a few times, but I really don't like lobbing it, because it isn't as fun and so I started killing it again. It worked, so it was just really finding what worked in the moment."

She credited her early success to a strong serve, which was something that she felt that she could control. Add that all up and it was no surprise she started her day 2-0.

"It feels really good, because I was nervous this morning," she said. "This is my first time doing sectionals without a doubles partner, so I am all on my own. It made it feel good though and it always feels good to win."

She finished her season by battling the No. 2 seed Maddie Kavenagh from Revere, who prevailed in straight 6-0 sets.

In doubles, Wooster's Megan Wyneski and Norah Carroll showed maturity and spirit to rally for a 2-6, 6-2, 10-5 win in their opening match.

"The past few matches have gone almost the exact same way," said Wyneski. "We lose the first set really badly and then we win the second set and then I was thinking that we are just going to hopefully win the tiebreaker. Still, we have also we have lost each tiebreaker by two, so I was just kind of panicking at that point."

Cleaning up their unforced errors in that second set proved to be key as they settled in and fought back. In the tiebreaker, they yet again rallied before securing the win.

"We stopped hitting to the net girl as much," said Carroll.

They both agreed it wasn't their best performance, but it was close.

"It was probably pretty close to it," said Carroll. "To get the win in that tiebreaker the way we did, definitely made it a lot less stressful."

"We just felt confident," added Wyneski. "It definitely felt really good to win by five points instead of two."

The pair then fell in a matchup with the top-seeded Highland squad of Sarah Sgambati and Madison Pawlak, 6-0, 6-1. Wyneski and Carroll took a point and won a game in nearly each point played as they made the Hornets earn every match point.

"It's good experience for both of them to get a win at sectionals," said Crooks. "They battled back after losing a set, came back and to win a three-set tiebreaker and hopefully this can give them some confidence to want to work harder over the off season. It's exciting for us as a team to see them do what they did."

At the Generals other doubles slot, Deah Bresson and Grace Grey waited nearly six hours and 45 minutes to finally hit a court. When they did, they duked it out with Brunswick's Megan Steffen and Abby Ivory for a 6-3, 6-0 win.

"It made for a slower start for us," said Bresson. "Once we got into our groove it was like normal from there."

The pair didn't wait long to start showing off the chemistry that you expect to see at doubles as they played quickly and efficiently off each other.

"(Grace) is one of my really good friends and the way I see it, is that I am here to have fun and play," said Bresson. "Winning is good, but at the end of the day, we both mess up. So, when that happens, we are kind of like, 'OK, we will get the next one.'"

"I feel that we both come from similar mindsets," said Grey. "We both come from team sports and so doubles works really well for us because we are team players."

For both seniors, this was their first year playing varsity tennis after playing junior varsity a year ago. Bresson picked up the racket last year and Grey two years ago, and both have enjoyed learning the game.

"We just keep working hard and getting used to this level of competition," said Bresson. "We have been doing better in the second half of the season and it's been awesome."

The pair saw their season come to a close as they fell to Highland's No. 4 seed Ella Gillin and Evy Boucher 6-1, 6-1.

Though the season may have come to eventual halt for majority of the Generals in sectional play, they definitely left an imprint at Springside.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Girls' Tennis: Wooster's Ava Mathur advances to district tourney