Hot Shot Champions

Nationals Next Stop
Sun City Hot Shots Sweep Southerns
MOBILE AL (TENNIS E-News via TennisLink) -- The Sun City Hot Shots that "came to Mobile to do three things: compete, win, and buy a round-trip ticket to Vegas" scored on all three by taking all three courts in the Senior Women's 3.0 finals today at the USTA League Southern Section Championships. The win qualifies the team for Nationals in the fall.
“We are expecting to come to Sectionals and win," Team Captain Sandra Maylen said in a story Thursday on http://www.southernleaguegtennis.com . "We have trained hard and are ready to endure the heat. We are going to take the whole thing; the other teams just don’t know it yet.”
True to their word, Maylen and partner Joyce McGaughan took a 6-3, 6-2 win at #3 doubles against unbeaten foe Louisiana/Shreveport. Things weren't quite so cut and dried on the other courts.
At #1, Karen Benedict and Jean Bergenthal took the first set 6-4, but dropped the second 7-5. Because USTA doesn't post actual scores of third-set match tiebreaks, all we know is that Benedict and Bergenthal won it "1-0". Maybe it was 10-1 or maybe 15-13. Whatever, they won.
On #2 court, Jerrilyn Brennan and Toni Valenstein fell behind and lost the first set 6-3, but then turned it around and won 6-3 in the second, following that up with a (you guessed it) 1-0 win in the match tiebreak.

What a roll for the Hot Shots! They took a 17-0 season record into sectionals, losing only one court all year … and that was during the South Carolina State Championship finals.

The Hot Shots' title was the only official one that the Hilton Head Island league teams captured at Southerns. Two other teams -- Senior Men's 2.5 Moss Creek Rat Pack and Senior Women's 2.5 Country Club of Hilton Head Volley Girls -- won South Carolina championships but had no teams from Southern's other eight states enter Sectionals, thereby "winning" their levels. Yes, we still are championing awards for our 2.5 champions.
The Long Cove Retreads, captained by Bill Cale, won States and three rounds in Southerns before losing to Louisiana champion Baton Rouge, which ended up falling 3-0 in the Senior Men's 3.5 final to Louisiana state runnerup Shreveport.
Here is the Hot Shots' trail to the championship:
Thursday the 26th
8 a.m. -- SW3.0 -- Sun City Hot Shots 3, TN (B)/Memphis Germantown Parks & Rec 0
#1 -- Karen Benedict/Diane Craig won 7-6, 6-3
#2 -- Sandra Maylen/Joyce McGaughan won 7-5, 6-2
#3 -- Toni Valenstein/Jerrilyn Brennan won 6-4, 6-1
Friday the 27th
8 a.m. -- SW3.0 -- Sun City Hot Shots 2, AR/Little Rock Burns Park 1
#1 -- Karen Benedict/Diane Craig won 6-4, 2-6, 1-0
#2 -- Sandra Maylen/Joyce McGaughan lost 4-6, 6-4, 1-0
#3 -- Jerrilyn Brennan/Toni Valenstein won 6-4, 6-2
1 p.m. -- SW3.0 -- Sun City Hot Shots 3, NC/Southport St. James 0
#1 -- Diane Craig/Karen Benedict won 6-4, 6-2
#2 -- Jerrilyn Brennan/Toni Valenstein won 7-5, 6-3
#3 -- Joan Eckhardt/Jean Bergenthal won 7-5, 6-3
Saturday the 28th
1 p.m. -- SW3.0 -- Sun City Hot Shots 3, MS/Southwest 0
#1 -- Diane Craig/Karen Benedict won 2-6, 4-4, retired
#2 -- Toni Valenstein/Jerrilyn Brennan won 6-2, 6-1
#3 -- Joyce McGaughan/Sandra Maylen won 6-1, 6-2
Today the 29th
8 a.m. -- SW3.0 -- Sun City Hot Shots 3, LA/Shreveport Miss Hits 0
#1 -- Karen Benedict/Jean Bergenthal won 6-4, 5-7, 1-0
#2 -- Jerrilyn Brennan/Toni Valenstein won 3-6, 6-3, 1-0
#3 -- Joyce McGaughan/Sandra Maylen won 6-3, 6-2.

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