Rockville's Chris Goodwin.
By Robert Klemko
With his fourth consecutive straight-set victory of the Maryland secondary school
boy's singles tournament,
Rockville senior Chris Goodwin captured his first state title Saturday at the University of Maryland. Goodwin's methodical 6-1, 6-0 win over
Mt. Hebron’s Sam Wichlin gave Montgomery county it's fourth of five possible championships on the weekend.
The top-seeded boy's favorite won 36 of 42 games over eight sets in four state tournament matches.
“Chris
was on his game today,” said Rockville coach Frank Weaver. “He's been
focused since day one. He knew what he wanted to do, he knew who he had
to play and how he had to get here and he just set his goals and that’s
what he did.”
The win was Goodwin’s second shot at a state title after losing in the finals as a sophomore.
“I
was definitely thinking about sophomore year. All week I was picturing
in my head playing on that court. It made me want it more after losing
that year,” Goodwin said. “It was good high school career. There were
always good players that were older than me but when I finally got my
chance I did what I wanted to do.”
In the
mixed doubles championship,
Whitman sophomore Pablo Gottret and freshman Sarah Macy notched a 6-4, 7-5 straight set win over
Churchill’s Brian Roberts and Danielle Mandir, a pair they had beaten with ease in the regional playoffs.
“For
the most part we were playing really good and I think we choked a bit
in the second [set],” Gottret said. “At the beginning we were like
'keep it up' and then in the second we were like 'what are we doing?’”
“They played a lot better today than we had seen before, but we pulled it out,” Macy said.
Whitman coach Jasen Gohn’s attention was torn between Gottret and Macy and his eventual
boy’s doubles champions. Kirby Mayo and Ian Epperson pulled off the first upset of the afternoon with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over
Churchill’s
Felix Sun and Kevin Chu. Sun is a two-time doubles state champion while
Chu held the upperhand in two regular season singles meetings against
Epperson.
“That was a huge upset,” Gohn said. “If you match them
up head-to-head you’d think that Kevin would be a little bit better
than Ian and Felix might be a little bit better than Kirby but its just
a totally different game with doubles and my guys just came out and
played the match of the tournament.”
Mayo and Epperson
anticipated a championship matchup with the Churchill pair from day
one. On Friday, Mayo said he was excited about the possibility of going
up against the defending champs.
“That's the right mindset to
have going into a challenge like this because a lot of times when you
step out on that court and if you know that you’re going to get beat
you don’t have a chance to win," Gohn said. "The champions want to play
that top seed because they want to beat the best.”
Walter Johnson’s Tiffany Lin and Maraya Pratt mounted the only successful title defense of the day, defeating
Churchill’s Stephanie Mandir and Lauren Minsky for the
girl’s doubles state championship.
Lin and Pratt won the honor last season and Lin won it the season prior with another partner.
“It feels good,” Lin said. “Today was tougher than yesterday. It's great, I mean it's all you could ask for.”
Walter
Johnson coach Mary Lafratta has grown to expect championships out of
the pair that led her team to the county title in the Fall. Lin and
Pratt defeated the same Whitman doubles team in the regionals this
season.
“They played almost flawless tennis. I think they made
maybe three errors in the whole match,” Lafratta said. “They beat two
really good tennis players and it was just the best match I've ever
seen them play.”
In
girl's singles,
Linganore senior Katie Schafer fought her way back from a championship defeat in her junior campaign to the reach the state finals where she capped a perfect 28-0 senior season with a three-set
victory over the very singles opponent that sent her packing last May.
Senior Katelyn Stokes, the undisputed leader of
Eleanor Roosevelt's
four-time reigning regional championship team, stretched the title bout
to the waning moments until Schafer broke her serve to go up 5-2 in the
third set. After the exhausting two-and-a-half hour fight, the two
champions embraced across the net and Schafer walked away smiling from
the same court where she had fallen a year ago.
“Each
match I had could’ve gone the other way so I just had to leave 100% on
the court every time,” Schafer said. “I was focused right on the court,
nothing around me really pressured me or stressed me out.”
Linganore coach Kathy Becker said the difference today was in her head.
“The
cool thing about Katie this year is that she has just developed the
mind game." Becker said. "She doesn’t let herself get down into those
slumps. When she makes a mistake she brushes it off and moves on and
that’s exactly what she did today.”