Canterbury's Leah Barnes and the Bishop Dwenger doubles team of Elizabeth Maxson and Audrey Rang won their quarterfinal matches Friday to advance to Saturday morning's semifinals in the state individual tennis tournament.
Barnes, a freshman, beat Kankakee Valley senior Abbey Hamstra 7-5-6-3 to improve to 27-0 on the season. She'll face Floyd Central junior Olivia Boesing, 23-2, at 10 a.m. at North Central High School. Penn senior Alexandra Brinker, 22-1, will pay Carmel's Bailey Padgett, 26-1, in the other semifinal. The winners will meet for the state title at 2 p.m.
Padgett defeated Blackhawk Christian's Andrea Cook 6-2, 6-2 to end the junior's season at 21-1.
Maxson, a junior, and Rang, a sophomore, improved to 22-0 with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Bloomington North's Courtney Baugh and Megan Coghlan in the quarterfinals. They'll face Jasper's 26-2 team of juniors Ashley Rogers and Elizabeth Theil in the semifinals. The winner will advance to play the winner of Highland's Abigail and Vanessa Madrigal, 15-0, and Zionsville's Autumn Fair and Kelly Mattingly, 20-5.
A Fort Wayne player has never won the girls state singles championship, though Homestead's Brenda Hacker finished second in 1984, 1985 and 1986/
No team from here has won the doubles state title. Homestead's Megan Everett and Susan Lentz finished second in 1992, Homestead's Alicia Butz and Molly Figel were the runners-up in 1996 and the Spartans' Brooke Parrish and Connie Shim placed second in 2003.
