By DAVE BELCHER
Moapa Valley Progress
The Moapa Valley High School Girls’ Tennis team was led this year by the duo of Morgan Aikele and Lilly Leavitt. The two competed last week at the state tournament at the Darling Tennis Center in Las Vegas and came home with a fourth place finished in the tournament.
Aikele and Leavitt were the fourth seed from the southern region and played the northern region champion in the first round of the state tournament: Abbey Burns and Gabbi Fisher of South Tahoe.
The Moapa Valley girls beat South Tahoe 6-3, 6-3. This advanced them to the second round.
In that round, they faced a match-up with a Meadows team of Clare Strimling and Isabelle Monroe, who were the second seed from the south.
In fact, the southern teams swept the northern teams in the first round all advancing to the second round.
But the Moapa Valley girls lost in a second round heart-breaker. They won the first game 6-4 and then fell apart and lost the second game 6-1. But they took the Meadows to the max and lost the final match with a close 7-5 score.
Their final match of the season was against Desert Pines Arrendondo and Palacios who beat Leavitt and Aikele 7-5, 6-2 to win third place.
Barsel and Nemec of the Meadows beat their teammates of Strimling and Monroe 6-3, 6-1 to win the state championship in the girls division.
Zach Larson and Noah Warren of Tahoe Truckee won the boys doubles state championship.
In the girls singles Boulder City’s Olivia Mikkelson won the state championship rather easily by beating her opponents 36-9. She is ranked in the top one hundred in the nation.
Zach Haas of Truckee won the boys singles championship.
