It was the final round of the home and away this week and the race to finish in the four couldn’t have been closer than Section 3 Girls.
At the start of the day, Western Heights Uniting had already claimed the minor premiership with a 28 point lead on its nearest rival Centre Court.
From there, however, the rest of the teams were a tight bunch. Centre Court was four points ahead of Leopold and Highton, while Wandana Heights sat three points behind, Geelong Lawn one behind again, and in seventh All Saints still had a fighting chance only five points out of the top four.
The final placings were going to depend on all of the day’s matches.
Western Heights Uniting continued its winning form, with a 6-0 win over All Saints, putting an end to their finals hopes. The minor premiers showed why they are ladder leaders only dropping 11 games for the day, and Jacqueline Kolar didn’t drop a game in the match.
Centre Court had a tougher match away to Wandana Heights taking it four sets to two.
Centre Court started well with Ava Alger and Milla Petrovski winning their singles 6-1 and 6-3, but the Heights came back in the next two singles with Momona Ishikawa and Caitlin Schwab taking their sets 6-5 and 6-1.
The match came down to the doubles where Centre Court finished the day on a high, taking both sets 6-1, 6-2, and secured second position and the double chance.
Highton hosted Geelong Lawn in the third match, and made the most of the home court advantage, producing a 4-2 win.
The day went well for the home team with Olivia Campbell, Ruby Dowd and Michelle De Paoli taking three of the four singles, but Lawn tried hard to push the match to a draw, narrowly missing out on the first doubles in a tie-break and Sienna Laing and Jasmine Williams winning the second 6-3. But this wasn’t enough to stop the home team taking the win.
The final match saw third placed Leopold travel to Lara in what was the closest match of the day.
Leopold’s Cheyenne Walters took the first singles 6-3 while Lara’s Elouise Henderson countered for the home team 6-2.
Charlotte Muller slugged out the third singles taking a 6-4 win for Leopold, while teammate Ashleigh Cox gave the away team a 3-1 lead with the doubles to play.
Billie Robinson teamed with Henderson in the first doubles putting Lara in good contention with a 6-2 win, but Leopold pulled out the win with Zarsha Williams pairing with Muller to gut out the final set taking it in a tie-break, guaranteeing their finals berth with the narrow 4-2 win.
At the end of the day, the ladder remained unchanged, leaving Western Heights Uniting to face Centre Court and Highton against Leopold next week to determine who will go straight into the grand final, and who will need to look to summer.
