After one of the two meets scheduled for last week was postponed due to weather conditions, the Manhattan High Varsity girls tennis team focused all their attention on Saturday’s meet at Emporia.

The Seaman Invitational was postponed from last Tuesday and was rescheduled for today as a quad with Washburn Rural, Marysville and Junction City.

The weather cleared up by Saturday, allowing the team to play on the tennis courts at Emporia. Due to the weather incident, the team was unable to practice before the match. 

“We were able to hit one day this past week, because of weather and it showed that we were a bit out of rhythm,” head coach Tony Ingram said in an email about the game.

Manhattan came in first, with 54 points, with Andover High in a close second with 53. They played against Andover, St. James, Conway Springs, Derby, and Emporia.

In singles, sophomore Jillian Harkin went 3-0, and placed in first. Kayla Lei, senior, went 1-2, and placed in fourth. Both Harkin and Lei got a bye, meaning automatic advancement into the next round of a tournament. 

In doubles, sophomore Maura Weins and Hannah Loub went 2-1 and placed third in doubles. [insert grade] Cooper Lohman and junior Ava Bahr went 2-2. Lohman and Bahr played St. James twice, winning the first time and losing by three points the second time. 

This happened to be the first time Lohman and Bahr competed together. 

“I was proud of our doubles team of Bahr and Lohman,” Ingram said. “This was their first opportunity to compete together and played well, winning a match by a tiebreaker.”

This was the second meet of the season, and the team agreed that they would play their best by October. 

“It was a good team win and this only being our second competition,” Ingram said via email. “The girls agreed, it is a process and we want to be playing our best in October.”

With the COVID-19 situation, the main hope of the team is to not have many tournaments cancelled, to get out there and play.

“We’re hoping that we don’t have too many tournaments canceled because of that. And so that’s our number one hope,” Ingram said. “I think, as a program, we’re just wanting to be able to get out there and compete.”

Working their way to be contenders for League Champions is a goal for the team, as they have won it in previous years. 

“I think the next step would probably be we would like to be contenders for League Champion. We won it the last two years in 2018 and 2019,” Ingram said.

They plan to be playing their best by October, getting better each practice. Ingram hopes the girls understand that it is a process.

“I think also making progress to where we are playing our best tennis in October which, helping the girls understand it’s a process right now,” Ingram said.

The next competition is their only home meet hosted by MHS, today at City Park Courts.