April
27th,
2
008
by Geoff
Thomsen
With most of the Junior National Team spots earned, play began bright and early Sunday morning at the 34th USA Racquetball Junior Olympic National Championships presented by Penn Racquet Sports.
In the Girl’s 18 Singles, Defending National and World Champion Michelle Key of Arizona successfully defended the first title and has now earned a shot at defending the second in December by virtue of her 15-8,15-6 victory over Indiana’s Sharon Jackson. Michelle was clearly pumped up for this one and seemed in control from the outset. Sharon gave it everything she had, but Michelle was clearly on a mission in this one. Both young ladies will be in Cochabamba, Bolivia this December and both will certainly be in the hunt for the World Championship.
In the Girl’s 18 Doubles, Michelle started Sunday morning with the final match of the Round Robin competition with her partner, Iowa’s Gabrielle Schnurman, against the defending champions Kara Mazur of Connecticut and Samantha McGuffey of Ohio. Michelle and Gabrielle started off on fire in this one and grabbed a quick 11-0 lead, but Kara and Samantha chipped away with each service rotation. They weren’t quite able to finish the comeback, but that did set the stage for the remainder of the match as they fought through a tough 10-15, 15-8, 11-4 win to officially win the National Championship.
In the Girl’s 16s, Sheryl Lotts of Ohio had already claimed the National Championship on Sat. after her victory over Arizona’s Danielle Key.
In the Girl’s 14 Singles, California’s Aubrey O’Brien completed her mission of a National Championship and return appointment to the Junior National Team with a dominating performance over fellow Californian Devon Pimentelli. I have to give a great deal of credit to Aubrey as she just refused to allow Devon to get comfortable in this match. You can see that she is already pointing towards a possible rematch with current world champion, Veronica Sotomayer of Ecuador. For those of you that read my updates from Junior Worlds, you know that was one of the matches of the tournament.
In the Girl’s 14 Doubles, Aubrey completed a perfect tournament with a hard fought win with partner, Lily Berry of Ohio over Devon Pimentelli and her partner Courtney Chisholm of Massachusetts. Scores were 12-15, 15-4, 11-4. So Aubrey will be playing both singles and doubles at the Junior Worlds and she is really looking forward to the challenge.
In the Girl’s 12 Singles, Virginia’s Kelani Bailey completed her surprise run through the draw in her Junior Nationals debut to bring home the National Championship with a straight games win over California’s Sabrina Viscuso.
In the Girl’s 10 Singles, Colorado’s Elizabeth Vargas claimed the Gold Medal that had eluded her in 2 previous attempts in this division with a straight game victory over Team Colorado teammate Erika Manilla, who is still a candidate for my player of the tournament designation, for whatever that’s worth.
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