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Golden Bears dominate Huron-Perth tennis championships

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It couldn’t have gone any better for Meg Feore and Ava McMillan.

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The Stratford District secondary school duo won all 24 sets at Thursday’s Huron-Perth tennis championships, sending them to next week’s Western Ontario event as a top contender to advance to OFSAA.

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“We were looking forward to playing together, so it’s nice that we can now that COVID has died down a little,” McMillan said.

It was Feore’s second time competing at the Huron-Perth event. She played in the fall of 2019 and qualified for WOSSAA the following spring, but it was wiped out by the pandemic.

McMillan, one year younger than her Grade 11 partner, was making her high school tennis debut, but she entered the event very familiar with Feore, having played together at the Stratford Tennis Club for at least five years.

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The duo was dubbed Fire and Ice, with Feore’s feisty play meshing well with McMillan’s cool composure.

“It really balances out,” Feore said.

Their chemistry extends beyond the court, which leads to trust between the white lines. They don’t get down on each other and can usually laugh off mistakes.

“We’re able to have a lot of fun on the court, which is really nice,” McMillan said. “I’m not nervous when I play with Meg, but if I played with someone else, maybe I’d be a bit more nervous.”

Feore and McMillan defeated two St. Marys DCVI teams and a St. Anne’s opponent on their way to a title.

“When we play at the club, it’s just people from Stratford and around the area,” McMillan said. “Being able to play with the school, we see teams from Goderich and St. Marys, so it’s cool to meet new people and move on to WOSSAA, which will be fun.”

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They’ll have a week to prepare for the Western Ontario tourney next Thursday back at the Stratford club.

“It will be good experience,” McMillan said, “especially to build off of in the years coming.”

SDSS’s Dayna Schieldrop winds up for a forehand in the mixed doubles final at Thursday’s Huron-Perth tennis championships in Stratford.
SDSS’s Dayna Schieldrop winds up for a forehand in the mixed doubles final at Thursday’s Huron-Perth tennis championships in Stratford. Photo by Cory Smith /The Beacon Herald

SDSS dominated the Huron-Perth tournament, winning the overall team title.

Felicity Sibold took the girls’ singles division. She rebounded from an admittedly slow start on the hard court — an 8-3 win over Goderich — to post consecutive 8-2 victories over South Huron and St. Marys.

Sibold’s serve was a big reason for the improvement.

“As the day progressed, I got better at throwing the ball high enough and focusing and not letting the nerves get to me.”

Like Feore, Sibold qualified for WOSSAA in 2019-20 but didn’t get to play.

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“I really wanted to finally get that opportunity to go, so I’m really happy it worked out,” she said.

Golden Bears Dayna Schieldrop and Mark Barton won the mixed doubles title in their first time playing together, a pairing that formed last week.

“It felt good,” Schieldrop said. “We played really well together.

“He’s really good in the front, and I can hit in the back as well. We can mix it up, and he’s really good at serving. I think we worked well as a team.”

The pair went 3-0, beating Mitchell, St. Marys 2 and St. Marys 1.

“We were just playing for fun,” Schieldrop said. “We won our first game and saw what was out there and thought we probably have a chance at winning.”

cosmith@postmedia.com

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