Catherine Kehoe finished off a stellar senior season of tennis for the MACA/WCA girls tennis team. She qualified for the Class A Singles State Tournament and competed in Minneapolis Oct. 26. The state tourney did not go according to Kehoe’s plan, with losses in her only two matches, but she still finished the season with an 18-6 record and Section 3A champion.
In the singles tournament, the Minnesota State High School League seeds the top four players and the rest of the players have a random draw. Kehoe was not seeded and drew a match against another unseeded player in Amie Vanderweyst from Foley. Vanderweyst came into the match with a record of 20-8.
Kehoe did what she could against Vanderweyst, but was playing from behind the whole match. Vanderweyst pulled off the straight-set victory 6-1, 6-2.
With the loss, Kehoe dropped into the consolation bracket where she played Brooke Zollner from Redwood Valley just a few hours later. Zollner also entered the match against Kehoe with a fairly pedestrian 15-13 record, but Redwood Valley did tend to play larger schools throughout the regular season.
Kehoe had her moments in the match against Zollner, but just had trouble sustaining any success. Zollner ended Kohoe’s state tournament ride with a straight-set victory 6-1, 6-2.
While her state tournament experience may have ended a day earlier than she had hoped, Kehoe had a great individual season for MACA/WCA and was a great role model for the underclassmen to follow even when she has moved on to college. With the state tournament in the books, the 2023 girls tennis season has officially come to an end. The girls will hang up their rackets for awhile before working on improving for the 2024 season.
