Ashlie Wilson
INDIANAPOLIS — Ashlie Wilson had all the momentum heading into the third set of Saturday morning’s Girls Tennis State Singles semifinal, but she kept running into problems with her racket.
Three times in her match with Evansville Memorial’s Ellie Myers, the strings in Wilson’s racket broke. The Columbus North senior ended up using someone else’s racket and eventually fell 6-3, 1-6, 6-3.
“It just made me a little nervous starting in the middle of the third set because I was using a different racket than what I practice with,” Wilson said.
After taking the second set on Saturday, Wilson was within 4-3 and led 0-30 with a chance to break Myers’ serve. But Myers came back to win that game, then broke Wilson’s serve to finish off the match.
“I thought I played pretty well today, especially the second set,” Wilson said. “That girl is really good, and I’m proud of the way I battled back and got it to a third set.”
“She played really well,” North coach Kendal Hammel added. “She’s disappointed and really frustrated she didn’t play as well as she could have. There were some close points. She just didn’t get some serves in when she needed to get serves in, and the other girl played really well.”
Wilson had not won a set off Myers in three previous meetings.
“I’m pretty happy with how I played,” Wilson said. “There’s always ‘What ifs’ looking back on losses, and it’s disappointing losing a close match like that, but like I said, Ellie Myers is a really good player and I’m really proud of how hard I fought.”
Wilson, who advanced with a 6-1, 6-0 quarterfinal win against Franklin’s Rylie Wilkison on Friday, finished the season 21-3.
“I’m still very proud of her,” Hammel said. “I know she’s disappointed, but to look back at what she’s done all four years and this year to get to this point, she should be very proud of what she’s done.”
