Girls tennis: Pioneers thrive in home tournament
May 9—FAIRFIELD — Goodl luck trying to outsmart Ishita Mukadam on the tennis court.
The Fairfield Maharishi sophomore actually has to miss competing in Wednesday's 1A regional singles and doubles tournament because of her success in the classroom. Mukadam closed out the regular season on Saturday winning 34 of 36 games in four matches claiming one of two singles tournament titles at the Pioneer Invitational, showing the skills necessary to contend for a state tournament berth.
Mukadam, however, will be in Georgia on participating in the international science and engineering fair. One of ten students from the school selected from regional, district and state ISEF-affiliated fairs, Mukadam will be competing in the microbiology category for her project about creating a turmeric bandage.
"Turmeric a spice that is usually used in food, but it's also used on wounds because of it's fast-healing qualities," Mukadam said. "With most bandages, they only protect the injury. They don't heal the injury. With my project, I wanted to take turmeric and bandages and put them together to create something that might help people heal from injuries faster.
"There was more involved. I won't go into the details. We might be here all day."
While Mukadam competes with some of the best and the brightest from around the world this week, the Pioneer sophomore may yet get the chance to compete with the state's best on the tennis court when she returns to Iowa. Maharishi (14-0) will host the first two rounds of Class 1A regional team tennis tournament play on Saturday starting with a dual against Burlington-Notre Dame at 8:30 a.m.
"We'd love to have Ishita back in the line-up. She showed great steadiness in the wind, adjusted to a lot of different styles of play and handled everything well," Maharishi head girls tennis coach Lawrence Eyre said. "Hopefully, all the flights back arrive on time and she'll be back with us by Saturday."
Mukadam may have had the most dominant performance within the tournament, but was hardly the only Pioneer player to thrive on Saturday. The battle for the No. 1 singles title came down the very final match of the day with Lily Fenton edging Albia senior Tanae Thiravong, 6-3, in a match that drew a lot of attention with all other matches having wrapped up at the Punj Tennis Center.
"In that last game, with everything being so close, it was just a matter of staying calm and staying consistent," Fenton said. "I knew exactly what this match meant. I think it added to it that everyone was watching. I get a boost when people are there to cheer for me. I enjoy it."
Fenton finished with 29 games won in four matches, two more than Thiravong who set up the singles championship match winning 23 of her first 27 games on Saturday. Despite the close championship loss, the setting provided the Albia senior good experience for executing in a big match with hopes of making a run on Wednesday in Pella at qualifying for the Class 1A state singles tournament.
"You just have to stay calm when you go into a big match like that. You can't let the external factors like the crowd or being the only match on the court with a championship on the line," Thiravong said. "Lily is always fun to play. It's nice to see some different competition outside of the (South Central) conference. It gives me a good chance to gauge myself on how well I can play against girls from other schools."
Vaisnavii Mohanraj and Bella Castle added the top doubles championship to the list of awards won by Maharishi in their home tournament. Like the top singles title, Mohanraj and Castle had to win a decisive championship match edging Davis County teammates Jenna Marlow and Jada Will 5-4 after the teams finished the tournament with 17 games won in three matches.
"People play freely when they know they're not going to be eliminated. Everyone knows they're going to play everyone and play a certain number of matches," Eyre said. "The main goal was to get everyone from every team a lot of tennis on a beautiful day. All the coaches are pointing towards Wednesday. I think it gave everyone a chance to work on a few things before tournament play begins. We hope our kids that are set up to play the best tennis they can."
Maharishi brought home the team title from their home tournament, scoring 103 points beating Albia by 19. Davis County finished third with 70 points, led by Addison Stuchel and Abby Warning who edged Albia teammates Sarah Mott and Shelby Rozenboom by two games (26-24) for the No. 2 doubles team title.
"We had no clue it was so close," Stuchel said. "It just goes to show that every game is important. Every time the score resets to 0-0, you never know just how important is going to be. You just have to take it game by game. The biggest part at this point is to stay positive and just keep supporting each other through each game."
Centerville edged West Burlington-Notre Dame by a point, 34-33, to finish in fourth place at the Pioneer Invitational. The Redettes were fourth in both of the doubles tournaments to overtake the Falcons.
— Scott Jackson can be reached at sjackson@ottumwacourier.com. Follow him on Twitter@CourierScott.
