A bumper crop of local tennis seeds
Almost three-quarters of the seeded singles and doubles entries in the upcoming 12th Region tournaments in Berea come from six Advocate-area schools.
Twenty-three of the 32 seeded entries are from Boyle County, Casey County, Danville, Garrard County, Lincoln County or Mercer County, including 10 of 16 in the boys singles and doubles brackets and 13 of 16 in the girls brackets.
(See list of seeded players below.)
There should be plenty of seeds from local schools every year, as roughly half of the region’s teams are from this area, but this is a banner year for local seeds.
On the boys side, the top four singles seeds and the top three doubles seeds are local, led by Kyle Jeffries of Casey County in singles and Koji Buterbaugh and Cody Nolin of Mercer County in doubles.
In the girls brackets, the top six singles seeds (and seven of the eight total seeds) are local, as are two of the top three seeds and six of the eight in doubles. The top seeds are CeCe Witten of Boyle County, the four-time defending regional singles champion, and Lee Lee Baxter and Lauren Yates of Mercer County.
There was talk of combining the boys and girls regionals into a single long weekend this year, but that idea was nixed at the coaches’ meeting Monday night in Stanford where the seedings and pairings were determined.
The tournaments will be played on consecutive weekends using the same schedule that has been in place for the past several years, with the boys tournament beginning Friday and the girls tournament beginning May 15. In each case, there will be one round of play beginning at 4 p.m. Friday, two rounds beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday and the final two rounds beginning at 2 p.m. Sunday. Most matches are at Berea College,
with some early-round matches at nearby Madison Southern.
12th Region Tournament Seeds
At Berea
BOYS
Friday-Sunday
Singles
1. Kyle Jeffries, Casey County; 2. Kyle Chadwick, Mercer County; 3. Colin Hart, Lincoln County; 4. David Theaker, Boyle County; 5. Zeeshan Asif, Somerset; 6. Florian Staudt, Casey County; 7. Caleb Lowndes, Southwestern; 8. Kerry Kingery, Russell County.
Doubles
1. Buterbaugh-Nolin, Mercer County; 2. B. Jeffries-Martin, Casey County; 3. Baeker-Hobson, Danville; 4. McWain-Polk, Somerset; 5. Johnson-Barrett, Garrard County; 6. Neal-Depretis, Wayne County; 7. Martin-Bivens, Somerset; 8. Heathman-Meek, Mercer County.
GIRLS
May 15-17
Singles
1. CeCe Witten, Boyle County; 2. Haley Hart, Lincoln County; 3. Casey Yates, Mercer County; 4. Rachel Ricker, Danville; 5. Sarah Browning, Garrard County; 6. Savanna Barnett, Mercer County; 7. Ines Stricker, Russell County; 8. Celeste Hurst, Boyle County.
Doubles
1. Baxter-Yates, Mercer County; 2. Clark-Eicher, Wayne County; 3. Polinedrio-Nelson, Danville; 4. Pitman-Burkett, Pulaski County; 5. Price-Curry, Casey County; 6. Napier-Scott, Garrard County; 7. Grant-Baer, Mercer County; 8. Skipper-Pemberton, Casey County.
