In a match where the final score gives no indication of how competitive the match was, Caldwell County’s Belle Englebright was knocked out of the Top Seed Tennis Club/KHSAA State Tennis Tournament Friday morning by the defending state champion.
Sacred Heart’s Carrie Beckman knocked Englebright out of the tournament with a 6-1, 6-o win at the Shively Tennis Center at the University of Kentucky. While Beckman only lost one game in the match, most all of the games were competitive, with several going to deuce over the course of the match. Each set there were points that Beckman pulled out, that if they had gone the other way, could have changed the flow of the match.
The difference in the match appeared to come down to the strength and power of the Sacred Heart sophomore, which enabled her to come up with several key passing shots at big moments in the match.
Afterwards, Caldwell County coaches were more than pleased with Englebright’s effort against the returning champion. The game Beckman lost was the first one she had dropped in the state tournament.
Englebright will return in 2020 for her senior season and figures to be the heavy favorite to win her third straight regional title.