Published: May 13, 2008 12:18 am         

Tennis sectional pairings announced

Host Logansport is bidding for third straight sectional title.

Pairings for the 34th-annual IHSAA girls tennis state tournament were drawn Monday evening.

At the Logansport Sectional, the host Lady Berries will face Carroll on Wednesday at 4:45 p.m. in the lone match of the day. On Thursday Lewis Cass will face the winner of Wednesday’s match at 4:45 p.m. and Delphi will face Twin Lakes at 4:45 p.m. The championship match is set for Friday at 4:45 p.m.

Logan has won two sectional titles in a row and enters with a 12-3 record.

“We’re anxious to play on Wednesday. We’re looking forward to get started playing right away,” Logansport coach Matt Tuggle said.

The Berries defeated the Cougars 4-1 in their regular-season match this season.

“Carroll played well in some spots in the first match,” Tuggle said. “Our lineup will be different. I don’t know about theirs.

“We can’t look past everyone. We have to take care of business,” the Logan coach added. “We respect all of the teams in our sectional.”

The Cougars enter with a 5-7 record. Carroll coach Jerry Reinke said his squad goes into the sectional as the underdog.

“Anyone we play in this sectional we’ll be the underdog against,” he said. “Logansport clearly has a really good team. When we played them earlier in the season we only won at No. 3 singles.

“We knew we’d have to play them at some point in time. You might as well get them right off the bat.”

Reinke added the Berries have an edge in experience against his squad.

“We have a lot of seniors, but a lot have only played a couple years,” he said. “One of our seniors is a foreign exchange student and two have only played a couple years.”

The Cougars do enter the sectional with an upset on their mind.

“You always have a shot,” Reinke said.

Cass is set to face the winner of Logansport-Carroll and enters with an 8-3 record.

“Logansport is obviously the favorite,” Cass coach Stu Engle said. “They’re good at every position. We’ll have to play our best to compete with them.”

The Kings travel to Hamilton Heights tonight to play for the Mid-Indiana Conference title in a make-up match from a rainout earlier in the season.

“We’re focused on that before the sectional,” Engle said. “We’ve had a really good year.

“We’ve been very consistent throughout the year and keep improving. The girls have worked hard to be in position to play their best tennis at the end of the season.”

The Kings defeated possible sectional opponents Delphi and Carroll 5-0 this season and lost to Twin Lakes 3-2 in their first match of the season.

“Twin Lakes has good senior leaders at (No. 1 and 2 singles),” Engle said. “They’re a strong team as well.”