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Opinion Salute to tennis, softball champions
Salute to tennis, softball champions
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Winning a state sports championship in the spring is doubly sweet. It
happens not only on the last day of a season, but also on — or at least
very near — the last day of the school year. A player’s got time to
savor the triumph. She can bask in the memory’s warm glow all summer
long. When all was said and done this spring, state trophies came home to roost in La Grande and Union. Now, let the basking begin! Kara Gerst and Josi Lyman, seniors at La Grande High, punctuated their high school careers with a tennis doubles championship, including a third-round victory over last year’s champions, Oregon Episcopal’s Erin Enberg and Gwenneth Johnson. For Union High School, the Steve Robertson-coached Lady Bobcats scored a 10-zip, no-hit, shutout victory over Nestucca in the Oregon Class 1A/2A softball final. The Gerst-Lyman tennis saga began back in 2006, when La Grande High tennis mentor Mike Schireman decided to pair the two up and see what they could do. Gerst and Lyman were friends even before that, had played middle school basketball together. And as a doubles team, they excelled. They learned, almost, how to read each other’s minds out on the court. Ultimately, they made history. With their 2008, senior-year championship, they brought home La Grande’s first state tennis title. Theirs is a wonderful local sports story, and a fine companion piece to the one about the 2008 Union High School softball team, a juggernaut in anybody’s book. The Lady Bobcats had it all this year — lively bats, speedy baserunners, great pitching and defense. They too wrote a line into the historical record books, winning Union’s first softball crown. This was a team almost nobody got close to. Of 24 Bobcat wins this year, 15 came on the 10-run mercy rule, including the one over Nestucca in the state final. Through their four postseason games, the Bobcats outscored opponents 45-3. The girls had plenty of reason to want to play and beat Nestucca in the season- and year-end finale. Nestucca was, after all, the team that knocked Union out of competition in the first round of the 2007 state playoffs. So when Jessy Reynolds pitched, she pitched with a vengeance, striking out 14 Nestucca batters. Her teammates gave her plenty of offensive support, plating 10 runs on 10 big hits. The rest really is history. La Grande tennis and Union softball came up with some truly outstanding performances, and the rewards go beyond the trophies they won. The ladies ended the school year on a high note, earning the respect of their teachers, coaches, classmates, competitors and fans. May they enjoy it all summer, and for many summers to come. |
