Cougars upset Montpelier girls, 7

MONTPELIER — A stray tennis ball and a noisy freight train added extra drama to a pair of make-or-break matches during Monday's Division II girls semifinal between Mount Mansfield and Montpelier.

The distractions could have easily derailed the Cougars’ bid to earn their second championship appearance in program history, but MMU's players brushed off the brief interruptions and slammed the door on the Solons’ bid for a three-peat.

Fourth-seeded Mount Mansfield (11-7) handed No. 1 Montpelier (12-4) its first playoff loss in four years, closing out a 7-0 victory in a match that was overflowing with tiebreakers and tense deuce points. The Cougars will now take a shot at bringing home their first crown when they face off against the winner of Wednesday's semifinal between No. 7 Rice (7-9) and No. 3 Burr & Burton (11-3).

"I felt the championship early on," MMU coach Sandra Fary said. "We have a lot of talent and the girls work hard. We practice two hours a day, six days a week. They put their heart and soul into tennis, they’re coachable and they want it badly. We haven't been to a finals since 1991. That's our one and only finals, and we lost."

Mount Mansfield girls tennis has never captured a championship in its 35-year history, but this year's squad is one victory away from ending that title drought. The Cougars suffered a 4-3 setback against Rice on May 20 and lost by the same score at Burr & Burton two days earlier.

"Two seasons ago we won more matches than we had in the past 10 years," Mount Mansfield's Irian Adii said. We got a new coach (Fary) three years ago and she's definitely helped and we’re on the way up."

Last year's 8-9 Cougars team wound up recording the program's first post-season victory since 2006 by defeating Woodstock, 5-2, in the quarterfinals. A few days later Mount Mansfield suffered a 6-1 semifinal loss to Montpelier, making this year's payback victory even more sweet.

"We lost to them 6-1 in the semifinals last year, so this was a big comeback for us," Adii said. "My whole team has just worked really hard this whole season to improve. It's been something we’ve been keeping in mind for awhile and working really hard toward."

Adii, Bea Molson, Ada Krull, Avela Krull and Zoe Rosen collected singles victories for MMU. Hannah Agran and Estelle First won in three sets at No. 1 doubles, while teammates Ava Poehlmann and Tulip Griesel easily prevailed at the No. 2 position.

"It was a tough day," Montpelier coach JP Lassner said. "There were a lot of close matches. We just couldn't play well enough to pull out some W's."

The Cougars pounced quickly at the beginning of the match to grab a 2-0 lead. Molson defeated Rachana Cherian, 6-1, 6-0, while Ada Krull recorded a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Sophie Sevi.

"Bea Molon is the best tennis player I’ve ever played with and she's raised the caliber for our team," Adii said. "And Ada Krull and Avela Krull are at No. 2 and 4 singles — and the four of us are all best friends. We’ve been playing a lot in the off-season and it's been paying off."

The Cougars quickly found themselves in a position where they needed just two more victories to eliminate the two-time defending champs. But nothing came easily as the No. 3 singles and No. 1 doubles matches dragged on for nearly one-and-a-half hours.

"(Adii) typically has hour-and-a-half, two-hour matches," Fary said. "She's got a ton of grit, she's a really patient player and she's just mentally tough. She plays one point at a time and just plays her heart out."

Adii delivered the goods for MMU with a 6-4, 5-7, 10-7 victory over Ruby McElwain, relying on a retriever-oriented strategy and patiently waiting for her opponent to commit an unforced error. But the match took a turn late in the second set when McElwain erased a 4-3 deficit and rallied to force a third-set tiebreak.

At the same time, MMU's No. 2 doubles team was attempting to give their school its third victory of the afternoon. First and Agran built a 3-0 lead in a third-set tiebreak, but the Solons quickly rallied to knot things at 5-5. The Montpelier standouts capitalized on a few errant returns by MMU to make it 7-7, but the Cougars inched ahead 8-7 on a winter by Agran. A few seconds later the local cargo train rolled around the bend and slowly made its way past the courts, resulting in an short stoppage of play. When things picked back up a few minutes later, Agran and First left nothing to chance. First ended things with her third overhead slam of the tiebreak, putting an exclamation point on the victory.

"Every once in awhile, I think, ‘Maybe I shouldn't (hit smashes). I might hit it and it will go out,’" First said. "And today a lot of times the Montpelier people would cheer when you hit it out, so I’d get shaken up a little. So the next time I’d just try to hit it lightly, instead of slam it. But I do really like to slam it."

Adii also found herself in a high-pressure moment when things screeched to a halt quickly. The Cougars veteran was in the midst of an 18-shot rally with McElwain while leading 9-7 in their third-set tiebreak when a ball from a neighboring court bounced near their baseline. McElwain spotted the intrusion and quickly called for a new point, prompting a quick transition after both players were deep in the zone. Adii used a powerful backhand a minute later to induce an unforced error by her opponent, triggering the forth-and-deciding team point for the Cougars.

"I was just focussing on playing my game and trying to play percentage tennis," Adii said. "Because I knew that if I won, then we’d be heading to the championship. So I was just thinking about my team the whole time. And it's my senior year, so it's my last year playing tennis here. And this has definitely been a big goal of ours for awhile."

Monday's loss marked Montpelier's first playoff defeat since the Solons fell short, 4-3, against eventual champ Woodstock during the 2019 semifinals. The Solons proved their mettle early this season by serving up a 4-3 victory over Division I St. Johnsbury. And Montpelier closed out the regular season with a bang by earning a 4-3 win over Rice.

"We knew this would be a really close match," Fary said. "In looking at their scores and our scores, we came out ahead for most of the matches. But they beat some key teams that we didn't beat and we had some trouble with. So we knew we had to come out and play the very best tennis we possibly could. And here we are."

MMU suffered losses of 5-2 and 6-1 against Burlington in addition to falling short, 5-2, against South Burlington. The Cougars’ also wound up on the losing end of matches against high-powered St. Johnsbury, Stowe, CVU and Essex.

"We had a lot of D-I teams in our lineup, so our scores don't really show our potential in the D-II league," Adii said. "We just had a lot of hard opponents."

Adii and McElwain were constantly dueling in marathon rallies, with each player tracking down shots all over the court and waiting for their opponent to eventually make a mistake.

"(The baseline) is my comfort spot and I know I can outlast a lot of my opponents from there," Adii said. "In the second set I just wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been and I was getting a little distracted. But I always try to keep my winning mentality. And it worked today, so I was happy."

With no officials present to make calls on shots close to the line, the pressure fell on each player to make the determination on the fly during some instances when things could have gone either way.

"I always try to be honest," Adii said. "And I even complimented (McElwain) on her line calls, because it's hard to find a super honest player. But it just makes the game more fun and fair for everyone."

With all eyes on No. 3 singles and No. 1 doubles, Adii couldn't help but glance over at the neighboring court a few times to monitor the situation.

"There was a lot of commotion in the crowd and I was watching (No. 1 doubles) a little bit," Adii said. "But I was doing a pretty good job of just staying in my game, so I felt good about that."

First was looking over at Adii's scores just as much, especially after Montpelier's Juliet Allen and Elizabeth Lassner dug deep in the second second and won five games in a row to steal the lead.

"It was very scary at times," First said. "When we won the first set and we were up 4-0 in the second, and then we lost the second set 7-5. So that brought us back down and we were like, ‘Oh my gosh, now we’re going to be in a tiebreaker.’ And we’ve had some trouble with tiebreakers in the past, so we just had to reign it in and play our game. And in the end, it worked out."

First set the tone for the third-set tiebreak by holding her ground at the net and sending an overhead slam past the Solons’ feet for an easy point. The Cougars promptly extended their lead to 3-0 to seize the early momentum.

"They came out and things were touch and go for awhile with that match," Fary said. "But they’ve got great communication and they’re really synchronous in terms of a team. And they really play off each other's strengths. …Estelle's a powerhouse. She has a great smash and she has a lot of finesse at the net. And Hannah is the positive one. She's the one who is talking through all the points and brings the team back when we get down."

Allen and Lassner closed the gap to 5-4 and then pulled even following a series of rapid-fire volleys inside the service box. The opponents traded points and were tied at 7-7 before Agran showed off her overhead skills to push her team in front 8-7. At that point the train chugging took center stage for a few minutes, resulting in the brief delay.

"I just thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this could be it. We might get in our heads here because of this little stop and because we paused and let (the train) go by,’" First said. "It took a couple minutes, and then once we started again we were like, ‘OK. We’re here, we’re up by one, we have two more points that we have to get. And we just focussed in on following through our shots and making the best shots we could."

When the action resumed, a Montpelier unforced error gave MMU a 9-7 advantage. First ended things with an exclamation point, slamming a shot past her opponents to lock up a long-awaited spot in the finals.

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DOUBLES