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Montoursville’s Barbour, Saar repeat as District 4 doubles champions in girls tennis

By Mitch Rupert 6 min read

When the final ball landed beyond the baseline, the celebration from Montoursville's Lydia Barbour and Rei Saar looked more like it was a relief than overwhelming joy.

The two played tennis for nearly 5 hours Monday at the Central PA Tennis Center defending their District 4 doubles championship. Their legs were heavy. Mentally, they were exhausted from the stress of a three-set final. So the hug they shared before congratulating Central Columbia's Emma Kelchner and Isabelle McHugh on a well-played match was like letting go of a breath it had held in all afternoon.

Barbour and Saar won their second consecutive District 4 doubles championship Monday, 7-6 (1), 3-6, 7-5. For Barbour, it was her third consecutive. And it was the fourth in a row for the Montoursville program.

Barbour and Saar advance to the PIAA tournament where they face the District 2 champion at the Central PA Tennis Center on Nov. 4 at 1 p.m. The District 2 doubles tournament begins Saturday.

"I just wanted us to play our best and try to win it for ourselves and not look at the overall legacy of it," Barbour said. "And now that they're only taking one team to states, it put the pressure on us even more to get the win."

"Knowing they were only taking one team we were kind of like 'it's OK if we get second because we did everything we could,'" Saar said. "But pulling this out was definitely nice."

But the duo certainly didn't make life easy for Warriors coach Shawn Gardner, who lived and died with every point on the balcony overlooking the court. For as good as Montoursville was - they hit 80 winners compared to Central's 52 - the Warriors struggled just as much at times, with 54 unforced errors compared to the Blue Jays' 43.

After pulling out the first set in a tiebreak, Saar and Barbour combined for 16 unforced errors in the second set. Central hit just four and rode the Warriors' inconsistency to a 5-1 lead which eventually turned into a 6-3 win and forced a decisive third set.

"It was very stressful because I know they can play better," Gardner said. "They're more consistent than that usually. But I think the nerves got to them a little bit, plus everyone was expecting them to win because Lydia's already won it twice and Rei won last year. They didn't play their normal games, but it turned out OK."

Central was coming off a grueling three-set match in the semifinals against Loyalsock's Katie Savidge and Sarah Hall in which the Blue Jays needed a third-set tiebreak win, 8-6, to move to the district final. That semifinal took nearly two hours.

And even though Montoursville got through Bloomsburg's Dana Lee and Brooke Keister in two sets, it took about 90 minutes to finish the Panthers, 6-3, 6-4, in a match of long points and longer games.

So when the third set of the final rolled around, it appeared Montoursville and Central Columbia were battling fatigue a little bit. The first four games of the set saw serve broken each time, with the two teams splitting the games, 2-2.

The breakthrough in the set came when Saar became the first player to hold serve, giving the Warriors a 3-2 lead. She used the final of he three aces to help close out the game. And it started a rush of four consecutive games won by Montoursville as it took a 5-2 lead over a clearly tiring Central team.

"Once you hold serve there, it's like you know you can beat them," Saar said. "Honestly, when you're in the moment, you aren't even thinking about how tired you are because it's more of a mental challenge than a physical one. You hit bad shots and you know it's because you're tired, but there's really nothing you can do except play better."

And Saar holding serve seemed to inject a little life into both she and Barbour. With her serve having become a little erratic, Barbour made a conscious effort to take some pace off her first serve and focus more on placement. The plan worked perfectly after Kelchner used her seventh and eighth aces of the match to tie the third set, 5-5.

Barbour's best serve of the day came at the best time, not even giving Kelchner a chance at a return and giving Barbour her 10th ace and a 6-5 lead. And from there, Central couldn't muster the fight to force a third-set tiebreak.

The two matches Saar and Barbour played with each other Monday were just the third and fourth matches they played together this year as a doubles team. The other two came Saturday in the first two rounds of the district tournament. And with the district singles and team tournaments going on last week, the two only had two days to prepare.

But they relied on the communication and chemistry they developed last year on their way to district gold. They worked together Monday like a finely-tuned machine, even if they didn't hit all the shots they wanted to.

"We know each other's strengths and weaknesses and we can play to those," Barbour said. "And we both felt like we were dominating at the net, so we wanted to take advantage of that."

"We just like to play together," Saar said. "It's fun to play together. Doubles is our thing. We dominate at the net and at the back you have to know your partner, and we did."

DISTRICT 4 DOUBLES

CHAMPIONSHIP

SEMIFINALS

Emma Kelchner/Isabelle McHugh, Central Columbia, def. Katie Savidge/Sarah Hall, Loyalsock, 3-6, 6-1, 7-6 (8-6); Lydia Barbour/Rei Saar, Montoursville, def. Dana Lee/Brooke Keister, Bloomsburg, 6-3, 6-4.

FINAL

Lydia Barbour/Rei Saar, Montoursville, def. Emma Kelchner/Isabelle McHugh, Central Columbia, 7-6 (1), 3-6, 7-5.

Aces: Montoursville 13 (Lydia Barbour 10, Rei Saar 3), Central 12 (Emma Kelchner 8, Isabelle McHugh 4). Winners: Montoursville 80, Central 52. Unforced errors: Montoursville 54, Central 43. Double faults: Montoursville 8, Central 3. Break point conversions: Montoursville 5 of 12, Central 6 of 11.

Starting at /week.