File photo by Mark Evans Lucy Harrison

ERIE — Four players from the Warren girls tennis team traveled to Westwood Racquet Club on Saturday to compete in the District 10 3A singles championships. Junior Lucy Harrison lasted the longest, advancing to the semifinals.

“This was our first year back in (Class 3A) in close to 10 years, so it was a nice change and gave us the opportunity to enter four girls as opposed to three,” said Warren coach Thomas Pellegrino. “The day kicked off with a meeting amongst the coaches to seed the top players in the draw. From this, Lucy Harrison was given the fourth seed from her regular season results. In the first round, we liked all of our matchups and I thought our girls all played some of their best tennis.”

Ella Card and Alannah Garza both received tough starts, drawing the Nos. 2 and 3 seeds, respectively, in the first round.

Card was defeated 8-6 by Lina Warrier from McDowell in the first round.

“This one was fun to watch as Ella was slowing down the pace and tracking down every ball, forcing her opponent to make shots,” said Pellegrino. “This was a challenging matchup for her, but she showed up today and competed at a high level, pushing one of the top seeds to the max.”

Garza was defeated by Mackenzie Jewell from Fairview 8-3 in round one.

“This one was far closer than the score looks,” said Pellegrino. “Alannah has been playing some great tennis and was not going to make it easy for one of the top seeds.”

Maddy McDunn won in the first round, defeating Erie High’s Jordan Salamon 8-4. This gave her a berth into the quarterfinals where she met up with the top seed from Fairview, Hannah Nichols, falling 8-1.

“Grabbing any win in the AAA draw is a challenge as all of the teams are so deep, so we were very pleased with Maddy’s play and getting to the quarters her senior year,” said Pellegrino.

Harrison continued her successful play at districts by making it deep into the draw for the third year in a row, only this time she broke into the semifinals. Lucy started off her day with an 8-0 win over Reagan Gehrlein from Fairview.

After this, she was matched up against Riley Gloystein from Erie High. Gloystein beat Harrison both times during the regular season. She avenged those losses by picking up an 8-5 victory in the quarterfinals.

“This was a great match from Lucy,” said Pellegrino. “It’s hard to get in the right mindset when someone has already beaten you, but she would not be denied and once she captured a 4-3 lead, she never let up.”

This win moved her into the semis against the top-seeded Nichols.

“In the semis, Lucy played some of her best tennis of the season with almost every game going to deuce, but fell 6-3, 6-3,” said Pellegrino. “We could not be more proud of Lucy. She always saves her best tennis for the district tournament and made a great run for the title.”

Nichols will meet the No. 2 seed and Fairview teammate Mackenzie Jewell at 2 p.m. today for the D10 3A title.

The Dragons have one more postseason event, which is the D10 3A doubles tournament this Thursday at Westwood.

“Three doubles pairs will be entered and we hope to have similar success on Thursday and make a title run,” said Pellegrino.