Columbus North’s Kathryn Wilson walks through an archway of Columbus North tennis players and other students after winning the Girls Tennis Singles State championship Saturday at Park Tudor School in Indianapolis.
Ted Schultz | The Republic
INDIANAPOLIS — As the sun began to dip behind the bleachers late Saturday afternoon at Park Tudor School, the sun also looked like it might set on Kathryn Wilson’s hopes at a state championship.
But the Columbus North junior, who had spent more than four hours in that sun through two Girls Tennis State Singles Finals matches, wasn’t done shining.
After watching her one-set lead slip away and falling behind South Bend St. Joseph junior Molly Bellia 2-0 in the third set, Wilson caught her second wind. She ran off five consecutive games, then dropped a pair before winning the 10th game of the set to pull out a 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 victory and a state title.
“I’ve just always told myself to never give up, and I’ve played by that, no matter what,” Wilson said. “I didn’t, and I kept battling and here we are.”
Wilson, who finished the season 30-0, becomes the second state singles champion from North. She joins Caroline Hedrick, who won in 2008.
After cruising through her morning semifinal match, Wilson had more than three hours to rest before taking the court for the title match. But that was an hour less than Bellia, who was finished with her semifinal before Wilson started her second set.
That didn’t seem to faze Wilson when they took the court in the afternoon. She capitalized on a few mistakes by Bellia (21-1) to jump out to a 4-0 lead in the opening set.
Bellia won the first two games of the second set before Wilson won the next two. The players then stayed on serve through the next four games and were tied at 4-4. Wilson had 30-0 leads in each of the next two games, but Bellia came back to win both and take the set.
Bellia, the 2021 state singles champ, then won the first two games of the third set and seemed to have all the momentum.
“We felt like Molly was dictating the points with the big shots way too much, and Kathryn was just sort of pushing that ball back tentative,” North coach Kendal Hammel said. “(Kathryn’s) big thing is her big forehand. Big serve and big forehand. So we discussed it that she had to get her to have the confidence to step up and go at her on the shots, driving that ball, and that was the biggest thing. Instead of sitting back, just go in and be the aggressor and take it to her going after the point.”
The turning point may have come in the fourth game of the third set. After Wilson won the third game, Bellia led 40-0 and was a point away from going up 3-1. But Wilson came from behind to take that game, then three more.
“I was being really tentative,” Wilson said. “Being more aggressive and just going for it was definitely helpful.”
Trailing 5-2, Bellia broke Wilson’s serve. Bellia then held serve to cut the lead to 5-4.
Serving for the match for a second time, Wilson finished it off.
“With the emotions, I think it makes you more tired, but you have so much adrenaline,” Wilson said. “You just want to keep going, and that’s what I did. I wasn’t really that tired. My feet just hurt really bad.”
The match featured several long rallies, with Wilson winning about 80 percent of those.
“Molly did not let up on anything, so there were balls that all of a sudden, she would just give us a free point,” Hammel said. “But the longer the rallies went, sooner or later, Molly made the mistake.”
In the the semifinal match, Wilson rolled to a 6-3, 6-1 win against Fishers sophomore Mischa Briggs (28-2). Although some of the points and games were long, Wilson never let Briggs get on any kind of a roll.
“I think the biggest thing for me was staying in it mentally and not getting too frustrated with myself,” Wilson said. “She was a really good player, so I had to keep fighting, no matter what.”
The match was delayed for about a half-hour during the first game of the second set when an official for one of the doubles matches on another court collapsed. After the official was taken by ambulance, the matches resumed. Prior to the championship matches, another official said tests came back negative, and the affected official would be fine.
The break didn’t halt Wilson’s momentum.
“The game plan for Kathryn was being patient and still being aggressive, and she did that pretty well,” Hammel said. “She did not serve well on first serves, but she hit her groundstrokes well, she handled the midcourt ball, she recognized when the short ball was coming with the drop shots and the slice and kept her head in there. She got frustrated a few times, but overall, I think she did a good job and came up with the big shots when she needed to.”
