St. Mike's tennis forfeits to Portales

After defeating St. Mike’s 5-4 in the morning, the Portales Lady Rams were handed their own tournament championship late Saturday night after the Lady Horsemen played all day for the rematch before forfeiting the title game.

According to Portales coach Michelle Wallis the St. Mike’s girls were upset about having to play consecutive matches to get back into the winners bracket and after defeating Artesia in the semifinals late Saturday night they packed up and went home.

“(The St. Mike’s coach) came up to the scoring table and he looked at us and he said, ‘We forfeit,’” Wallis said.

When the two teams hit the court at seven in the morning, it was as close as two teams could possibly be.

Portales’ top two girls, Ella Erf and Bethany Self both won their singles matches before Tessa Bryant suffered the Lady Rams’ first loss to Sarah Banes 4-6, 0-6.

Kassandra Short got the Portales girls back on the winning track with a dominating 6-1, 6-2 victory over Charlene Montoya. Jayna Nance and Lauren Woodward losses tied the match at 3-3 after the singles competition.

The two teams split the first two doubles matches with Erf, Self winning their match before the Lady Horsemen Banes sisters beat Bryant and Short. But it was Portales’ Jayna Nance and Shelby Lucero who won the third doubles match that clinched the Lady Rams 5-4 victory over St. Mike’s.

The Portales girls swept Artesia to clinch their championship match appearance.

Wallis thinks the late time due to Friday’s severe weather frustrated St. Mike’s.

“They did not like the way the brackets were fixed,” Wallis said. “Because it was so late and they were saying that they had to travel back to Santa Fe, and we tried to tell them it was because of the weather that we were playing so late,” Wallis said. “They settled for second which is a shame because my girls were ready to play them. We were tired but yet we still had some adrenaline going.”

St. Mike’s took second and the Artesia girls took third. After splitting Friday’s matches, the Clovis girls swept NMMI 9-0 before losing to St. Mike’s 6-3.

In late Saturday action, the Rams took third behind NMMI and St. Mike’s.

Portales lost this morning to the Horsemen 9-0, before defeating Raton 8-0 and Santa Fe High 7-2.