Cheyenne Mountain girls' tennis shows strength at own invitational

Somewhere between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday, defending 5A girls’ tennis state champion Cherry Creek and runner-up Fairview were plucking their racket strings wondering, "Are we still the state’s top teams?"

Maybe not.

At the Cheyenne Mountain Invitational the 4A host took first in three of the four doubles events in the eight-team tournament, en route to a 32-all first-place tie with Fairview. Cherry Creek followed with 22 points.

“This gives us some momentum going forward,” said Indians coach Dave Adams, whose team beat Cherry Creek 5-2 in a dual Tuesday as well. “One of our goals is to win the 4A tournament obviously, but we’d also like to notch a win against whoever wins 5A as well.”

Cherry Creek …check.

Cheyenne Mountain will travel to Fairview on April 24 to face a team it was ravaged by 7-0 last season – but tied today.

“That’ll be interesting for us,” Adams said.

The most competitive match wrapped up after a total of 506 confidence-boosting high-fives and two stretched-out sets as the Indians’ No. 1 doubles team of Francis Adams and Caroline Kingo beat Cherry Creek 7-6 (6), 7-5.

“It was really close. A lot of deuces and ad-ins and ad-outs,” said Francis Adams who, with her partner Kingo -- a foreign-exchange student from Denmark one of whose host families was the Adamses -- beat the same Cherry Creek team Tuesday in three sets. “We showed a lot of fight and showed we can get down and dirty.”

Francis Adams was part of the only Cheyenne Mountain doubles team that didn’t win the state title last year. But this year, with a new partner who she calls a sister, the pair looks to be the 4A favorite as they’ve yet to lose a match.

“We’re ready to win it this year,” said Adams as she added to the day’s total with another high-five with her partner.

After that, there were two bouts left and Cheyenne Mountain led by a single point.

The No. 2 Fairview doubles team took on Cherry Creek in the championship match (a two-point match) and a chain-link fence away Cheyenne Mountain’s No. 2 duo faced Fossil Ridge (one-point match) for third.

Fairview struck first. It rallied in three (5-7, 6-4, 6-3) to take a one-point lead in the team scores as Cheyenne Mountain’s match was hanging in the balance.

“Don’t tell them they need to win this to tie Fairview,” one parent covered in maroon said as he moved around the courts. “It’ll make them nervous.”

Twenty minutes later, defending 4A champions Shelby Gilles and Lara Walden swept the clinching game to take the match (6-3, 6-4) and push the Indians into a tie with one of 5A’s finest.

“We got exactly what we wanted from this tournament,” said Adams whose girls look to be in line to win their fourth straight title.