By Mike Hutchens, UC Schools Communications Director
While Shelby Bondurant and Molly Kizer didn’t take home the state doubles championship for the second straight year Friday, the Union City doubles team has taken the Lady Tornado program to another level.
“These two girls have won more matches than any two girls in the history of the program,” UC head coach Tom Sisco said after Bondurant and Kizer were beaten 6-2, 6-1 in the Class A finals by Summertown’s Emma Perry and Annalee Kelly.
“They’ve been very, very successful. They’ve truly taken our program to the next level, and our expectations have been heightened in their time and moving forward because they’ve won so much. Whatever success happens in our future, they’ll have been a big part of that.”
In addition to their impressive match win totals in four years, Bondurant and Kizer have played in five state championship matches while representing the Purple and Gold – three in a team setting, and twice in the individual field. Bondurant also played in the state doubles her freshman season with Annie Wade, advancing to the semifinals.
Unfortunately, Summertown has officially become UC’s nemesis in all those matches, winning every one while forcing the Twister girls to settle for less than gold.
After the Union City duo won the opening game of the match, Summertown’s Perry and Kelly ran off five unanswered games – twice breaking service and winning three deuce games. The Lady Tornadoes actually led in all but one of those games but couldn’t string together multiple points.
Consistently ripping winners and making few mistakes, Summertown recorded two more service breaks and won two more deuce games while winning the first four games of the second set to remain in command.
“Today, they were better than us,” Sisco admitted. “They executed all their shots, and we helped them with some unforced errors. You can’t expect to beat people of their caliber when you don’t have your best day.
“Not to make excuses, but I do truly believe we were still suffering from a fatigue hangover from our team matches. We just exerted so much effort and energy on the team side Tuesday and Wednesday, and I never felt like we got totally in sync in the individual rounds.”
Sisco acknowledged there’s still work to be done before UC tennis wins that elusive first championship.
“There are some things we need to implement that we’ve seen while playing many of the private schools and with the elite public schools,” the coach concluded. “We have to work harder in all phases of the program – we as coaches, too, to get to where we want to be.
“Fortunately, we see interest in the program on both the middle school and high school levels because of girls like Shelby and Molly. And I believe we’ll have a strong work ethic to do the things we need to.”
UC’s girls will return three of its Top 5 seeds next season, with quality depth behind those top players and an influx of middle school players expected to continue the storied tradition of the program.