Blind draw pits Chesterton and sectional host Valparaiso against each other right off the bat Tuesday in a quarterfinal that is a rematch of a regular season match won by Chesterton 4-1

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

The six-deep Valparaiso girls tennis sectional stretches over three days, beginning Tuesday and ending Thursday, but the final two days amount to a formality in terms of crowning a champion.
Host Valparaiso and chief rival Chesterton, the only two schools given a realistic shot at winning the sectional, drew each other in the first round. They meet Tuesday in one of the two quarterfinal matches.
The pairings, determined by a blind draw, were announced on Sunday night on IHSAAtv.org and three schools in the upper half of the bracket were delighted with the results because they do not have to defeat either of the top two teams in the sectional to advance all the way to Thursday’s championship match.
The winner of Valpo vs. Chesterton advances to a Wednesday semifinal vs. Boone Grove. In the upper bracket, the winner of Tuesday’s Kouts vs. Portage quarterfinal advances to a Wednesday semifinal against Wheeler.
The quarters and semis start at 4:45 p.m. The championship is scheduled for Thursday at 4:30 p.m.
Chesterton enters the postseason with a 14-2 overall record and a 7-0 mark in the DAC in the wake of winning its third conference crown in four years.
As expected, seniors Kenzie Kania and Amelia Smith have led the way. Kania went 17-2 overall in the regular season and 7-0 in the DAC. Smith went 9-2 with Genevieve Driscoll as her No. 1 doubles partner. Morgan Matthys and Lizzy Navarro are 9-1 at No. 2 doubles, and No. 3 singles player Emma Dobson takes a nine-match winning streak into the postseason, including earning the clinching point at Lake Central.
The Trojans won their DAC matches by a combined 28-5 point tally. Only Lake Central scored two points vs. Chesterton. Valparaiso, Crown Point and Michigan City each scored one point and Merrillville, LaPorte and Portage didn’t win a point.
Monday’s semifinal is a rematch of the Trojans’ 4-1 win over Valparaiso on April 23, but the match carried much more tension than most outcomes of that margin.
Valpo pushed three of the matches to three sets. After the first set, Chesterton was behind in three of the matches.
In the end, Dobson was the only one who didn’t win, losing 3-6, 5-7.
Smith was the team’s lone returning varsity doubles player from last season, so the uncertainty of how the doubles would perform left Bour without as much confidence as he typically takes into a season.
“If you would have told me we were only going to lose three or four doubles matches this year I would have said you’re nuts, we’ll lose double that,” Bour said.
Yet, here the Trojans are entering the sectional tournament as undefeated DAC champions seeking their sixth consecutive sectional title showing more depth than anticipated.
Freshman Ella Rone has been a big part of that depth, filling in for injured players without losing.
It will be interesting to see if the coaches’ state top 30 rankings released every Monday will reflect Chesterton exceeding expectations after defeating No. 17 Lake Central. The Trojans have not appeared this season in the top 30.
“We don’t get much respect in that, so we’ll see,” Bour said. “We should have been top 20 last year.”