Lakeside No. 1 boys’ singles Julian Santucci (top photo) was on his way to a win when match was stopped. Lakeside girls’ No. 1 singles Johanna Goebel (bottom photo) fell in two sets in her match.
Both Lakeside teams fell in the Elite 8 round of the Class 6A state playoffs. (Photos by Mark Brock)
The DeKalb run in the state tennis tournament came to an end on Tuesday evening as both Lakeside Vikings teams and the Chamblee Lady Bulldogs fell in their respective third round matches to end the season.
In Class 6A action, the Lakeside teams played at the DeKalb Tennis Center with hopes to advance to the state semifinals, but a pair of losses brought a great playoff run to an end.
The Lady Vikings fell to Centennial 4-0 to finish up the year at 7-5 and their Elite 8 appearance. Centennial picked up the first point with a 6-1, 6-0 win at No. 2 doubles as the Lakeside duo of Audrey Bender and Maggie Bell fell to Centennial’s team of Emmanueelle Lamarche and Samantha Ruder.
Michaela Kakaska picked up the second point for Centennial rallying from a first set deficit of 2-3 to win four consecutive games to go up one set. She then ran out to a 5-0 lead in the second set before closing it out 6-1 to get the win.
The No. 1 doubles team from Lakeside of Noey Mauldin and Sarah Elder played some long games against Centennial’s pair of Mary Kate Kahl and Livia Nursalim but never got control in the match before falling 6-2, 6-2 as Centennial clinched the team victory.
Another long match at No. 3 singles pitted Lakeside’s Emily Ellingson against Centennial’s Alena Paiva. Both sets were close and several long rallies went Paiva’s way as she won 6-2, 6-3.
The boys’ match had four Lakeside lines battling back from first set losses before Cambridge closed out the 3-0 victory.
The No. 3 singles match has Lakeside’s Sam Fournier dropping a first set 6-2 to Cambridge’s Savir Sethi then battling in the second set to try to extend the match. Fournier was tied at 5-5 before Sethi closed out the 7-5 second set with two straight games to give Cambridge its point.
Lakeside’s No. 2 singles player Tommy Ellet dropped his first set 6-1 to Brad Becker. He came out fast in the second set jumping up 4-1 only to have Becker rally back to win 6-4 to take the match.
Dereck Ranero and Wynnton Martin fell 6-1 in the first set of their No. 2 doubles match against Cambridge’s Conner Tenlason and Tomi Romano were down just 3-2 before falling 6-3 as Cambridge closed out the match to advance.
Lakeside’s Julian Santucci won his first set 6-3 over Cambridges’s Mason Harmon at No. 1 singles and led 5-3 when the match was shut down.
The Viking duo of Shann Jani and Jay Jani dropped a tight 6-4 first set at No. 1 doubles to Grayson Pellerher and Henry Wood but were leading the second set 4-1 when the match was halted.
Class 5A Girls
Woodward Academy pulled out a thrilling 3-2 win over the three-time defending Class 5A state champions Chamblee Lady Bulldogs on Tuesday at Woodward.
Chamblee had not lost a state tournament match since 2016 running off a string of 17 consecutive wins including state titles in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
The match was knotted at 2-2 when Woodward pulled off a comeback at No. 2 doubles to win the third set tiebreaker to clinch the match to end Chamblee’s season.