OTTUMWA — Ava Barnes thought she was done.
The Ottumwa junior had to play a little more, however, to wrap up her first singles win of the season.
"We were coming off the court and then we realized we weren't done," said Barnes after exiting the court initially leading 6-3 and 6-5 in the No. 4 singles match. "I think it was okay. I was still warmed up."
Barnes finished off a 6-3, 7-5 win over Des Moines Roosevelt junior Dinah Vance, allowing the Bulldog girls tennis team to tie the Roughriders at 3-3 entering the five varsity doubles matches. Barnes and doubles partner Emerson Keith would go on to secure Ottumwa's season-opening 6-5 Iowa Alliance Conference south division win with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Vance and Sophia Whitehead in the No. 2 doubles match.
"Coach (Leann White) did not tell us what the team score was. I think she knows we both would have freaked out," Keith said. "I was happy to hear it when we came off the court because it made it all worth it in the end."
Jordan Lee and Jaslyn Parsypo added wins in singles play. Lee scored a convincing 6-2, 6-0 win in the No. 3 singles match over Whitehead while Parsypo posted the most dominant showing of the day for any Bulldog player, losing just one game in a 6-1, 6-0 sweep of Talila Bruning in the No. 5 singles match, helping Ottumwa keep the dual even going into doubles play.
Ottumwa got more successful contributions in doubles play starting with a 6-3, 6-2 win in the No. 5 match from junior teammates Ashlyn Hough and Giselle Cordova over Cailida Vasquez and Annabel Albright. Hunter Caldwell joined freshman teammate Madalynn Sertterh for the first time, scoring a 6-1, 6-4 win over Bruning and Lauren Mauk in the No. 3 doubles match for the Bulldogs.
"It was awesome to see the girls put into play a lot of the things we've been practicing," White said. "Just seeing Hunter being super aggressive at the net. Emerson and Ava were super aggressive. That's one huge thing that we've been working on this season is making sure that we're back far enough so we can be aggressive. It was really good to see all of our teams doing that."
Ottumwa (1-0, 1-0 Iowa Alliance) heads to Waterloo on Saturday to compete in the Chuck Schupbach Memorial Invitational. Action gets underway at Byrnes Park starting at 9 a.m.
