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Altoona too much for Huskies

Mifflin County wins 7 games in home loss

Sentinel photo by BUFFIE BOYER
Mifflin County’s Jamie Mahigel returns the ball against Altoona Monday in Lewistown. Mifflin County fell to Altoona, 5-0.

LEWISTOWN — The Mifflin County girls’ tennis team played with effort, but Altoona had too much firepower in a 5-0 non-league contest Monday afternoon at Mifflin County.

The Huskies (1-3) won four games in singles and three in doubles with the Lady Mountain Lions taking all the matches in straight sets. In all three singles, Mifflin County dropped the first set by a score of 6-0.

“They play a lot more tennis than we do. We run into teams like that with Hollidaysburg, State College, Hershey and teams of that nature,” Mifflin County tennis coach Glenn Kyle said. “What I go into the matches trying to do is to get our kids to play as hard as they can, win as much as they can because that will make them better for the next match. The goal is to try and improve every match.”

In number one singles, Jamie Mahigel fell to Jess Stevens 6-0, 6-1. Stevens relied on blistering forehand passing shots when Mahigel came to the net for the majority of her points. Mahigel couldn’t get into any rhythm against Stevens and her precise work from the baseline.

“Jamie’s game is one where she’s always going to get balls back, and she is going to make the other person work to score a point. Sometimes her matches last a long time, but that’s her game and what she has to do,” Kyle said. “There’s days when she is a lot better at putting the ball where she wants it. Today might not have been one of those days, but she is always going to battle. Jamie has as much competitive spirit as anyone on the team.”

Anna Ream, down 6-0 after one set of her number two singles match with Maura Skelley, played a much better second set before falling by a 6-3 score. Ream had stellar pace on her shots in the second, and a hard, deep serve kept Skelley off-balance.

Ream found herself down only 4-3, but Skelley with some solid drop shots, a slicing serve, and crisp volley’s held on for the victory.

“The thing about Anna is she’ll play hard, make a good, strong shot, but when kids make it back, she has to make another good, strong shot. It’s that persistence and consistency she needs to develop,” Kyle said. “She’s shown a lot of strong play, but when it comes down to it, you have to do it repetitively against good people. She’s still battling that. She has a nice game. She covers the court well, and she plays all the time. I want to see better things for her.”

Amanda Foltz fell to Lindsey Hallinan at number three singles 6-0, 6-0. The Lady Mountain Lions (2-0) completed the shutout when Kayley Burke and Olivia Hudson defeated Laura Hurlburt and Abby Yearick in number one doubles 6-0, 6-2. In number two doubles, Jasmine VonColln and Zoe Wilson beat Mackenzie Fultz and Sydney Kyle 6-1, 6-0.

“We’ve gotten better. We need to keep working to get better. This is the first day of school for the kids, they’re thinking about that, and now that it’s out of the way, tomorrow we can go in, get away from home a bit, and concentrate on playing. If we can do that, I think we’ll be okay,” Kyle said.

Mifflin County travels to Central Dauphin East in a Mid-Penn contest tomorrow.

“We play CD East tomorrow and playing a team like Altoona today will only help us. CD East is not as good as they are. It should help us get ready for them,” Kyle said. “We didn’t start out well, but I did see the effort. They played much better in the second sets. Hopefully, that carries over to tomorrow.”

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