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Tennis
is one of the first sports that girls were allowed to
play at the high school level, the sport being played as
an intramural activity as early as the turn of the last
century. Tennis soon became one of the earliest of
interscholastic sports enjoyed by the young ladies, but,
while the boys were competing for their first state
championship in tennis in 1920, the girls would have to
wait until the great influx of sports to that level of
competition during the 1970s before they, too, could
shoot for a state championship trophy.
The
first state tournament for girls tennis was finally held
in 1976, only the fourth sport in which the girls could
hope to win a state championship. The schools
participating in girls tennis were divided into three
divisions (Class A-AA-AAA) from 1976 to 1989, then just
two (Div. I & Div. II) from 1990 to the present day.
Columbus Bexley High School exploded onto the state
tennis scene by capturing the combined Class A-AA girls
singles and doubles championships in that first state
tournament in 1976. But Bexley was just getting
started. Led by Patti Schiff, who won the singles
title, and the doubles team of Amy Weiffenbach and Lee
Earl, the Lady Lions would also capture the A-AA state
titles in both events in 1977 and 1978, with these same
girls repeating as the championships each time. Schiff
would become one of only five girls to capture three
singles titles, while the Weiffenbach-Earl duo is still
the only doubles team to ever capture three state girls
titles.
The big
name in Class AAA in those earliest years of the
tournament was Vicki Nelson of Wooster High School, who
won three singles titles in 1977-78-79. The other
three-time girls singles champions are Sarah Brown,
Rocky River High School (1988-89-90), Michelle DaCosta,
Huber Heights Wayne (1997-99-00), and Audra Falk,
Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy (1998-99-00).
However, Vicki Nelson�s success at Wooster High School
would prove to be the exception, rather than the rule,
for players from schools in the northern half of the
state. Throughout the history of the girls state tennis
tournament, the battle for supremacy has been dominated
by schools from the central and southern areas of Ohio,
especially those schools in the middle of the state
around Columbus. The high schools that have written
their names most often on the championship trophies are
Centerville (4 singles, 9 doubles), Cincinnati Indian
Hill (5 singles, 5 doubles) and Columbus Bexley (5
singles, 5 doubles). All of these titles were won
before 1999. Since then, the championships have been
spread around a bit, and while they are inching ever
farther north, especially to the Toledo area, the area
around Columbus still seems to be the center, literally,
of Ohio�s girls tennis competition.
On
October 21, 1988, Andrea Farley of Cincinnati Indian
Hills High School defeated Amanda Krantz of Orange High
School, 6-0, 6-1, in the opening round of the state
Class A-AA singles tournament. The next day Ms. Farley
defeated Michelle McMillen of East Palestine High School
by scores of 6-1, 6-3, to win the Class A-AA state
championship, putting herself into not only the state,
but also the national, tennis record books. By winning
the 1988 A-AA singles championship, Ms. Farley became
the only Ohio high school tennis player, boy or girl, to
ever win four singles titles. She is one of only about
three dozen young ladies in the entire country to have
ever accomplished this extraordinary feat.
The
tennis team from St. Thomas Aquinas High School in
Louisville, Ohio, wrote its name into the Ohio and
national tennis record books with an accomplishment that
will be tough to beat. From 1989-1997 the Lady Knights
won 128 dual meets, the longest such run of success in
state history, and the fourth longest in the nation.
During that time span the Lady Knights also captured a
pair of state championships. In 1993, as a freshman,
Celena McCoury won the Division II state singles title.
Ms. McCoury came back three years later to again take
the singles title as a senior in 1996.
Vincent
J. Romeo, Jr., is the most successful girls tennis coach
in Ohio history. In a coaching career that spanned 30
years, from 1971 to 2000, coach Romeo posted a record of
418-85, .831. All but four of those years were spent at
The Miami Valley School near Dayton. Somewhat
surprising is the fact that, in those 30 highly
successful years, coach Romeo never enjoyed the thrill
of seeing one of his girls become a state champion. His
win total is the third largest in the country. |
