The members of the Fort Zumwalt South girls tennis team find themselves in a familiar situation in advance of their Class 2 sectional tennis matchup with Incarnate Word Academy on Saturday.
Much like last season, the Bulldogs were one of the top two teams in district play and advanced to the sectional round.
Unlike last season, however, Zumwalt South coach Dave Fox is hopeful this team can advance past Incarnate Word to the quarterfinal round to take on either McCluer North or Parkway Central.
"I'm thrilled that we've come this far because we thought this might be something of a rebuilding year," Fox said. "We lost three of our top four players from last season."
Fox's No. 1 player, Morgan Roberts, made it to the district final at No. 1 singles, where she fell to Timberland's Savannah Drew 6-0, 6-0.
"Morgan has played great this season," Fox said. "There is no shame in losing to her (Drew) at all."
Drew, after all, placed fourth in all of Class 2 last season, and is poised for another great run this postseason.
The team win is the latest chapter in a season in which South went 12-6 in dual matches and was hot as the regular season wound down.
The last dual loss for Zumwalt South came Sept. 15 against Francis Howell.
Counting the district team competition, that's six dual wins in succession.
"We have six seniors that wanted to work really hard and have done so," Fox said. "They've worked so hard because they wanted to make their last year here the best year possible. They've just never stopped practicing and they've never stopped playing. They never gave up or stopped trying to get better and it has paid off."
Included in that group is Roberts (11-4 in singles, 8-4 in doubles), Jaclyn Basiley at No. 2 (6-8, 8-3), Madison McElligott (8-4, 5-5), Emily Daven (4-2, 3-2), Destiny Kelley (6-5, 7-6) and Chloe Vitale (4-3, 1-3).
Fox said he is hopeful his team can learn from what the program went through last season and build upon that.
"It would be amazing if we could take things at least one step further this year," Fox said. "We all would like to go at least one round further. We're all really excited to be there, though."
The sectionals will be played at 9 a.m. Saturday and the quarterfinals will follow at 1 p.m. that day.
While Zumwalt South excelled as a team and Drew shined individually at the district, the Fort Zumwalt West duo of Anna Kate Albright and Katarina Schmidt also came out on top in the district round.
The pair defeated the Troy duo of Toni Firoved and Michal Talley to capture the district doubles title by a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 score.
The winners from the quarterfinal matches, as well as those singles players and doubles teams that qualified for the state meet will compete for state titles the weekend of Oct. 21-22 at the Cooper Tennis Complex in Springfield.
