The girls team came in at something of a disadvantage as Higdon had been ill all week and was unable to practice until the day before the tournament. At State, the team was unable to regain some of the magic it had manufactured in pulling off the upset regional win.
"They were unconscious in that regional tournament," said Sherry Vincent, Cougar head coach. "They were making shots I hadn't seen until then and have yet to see since."
To make things even tougher for the girls, they faced the tournament's number-four seeded team, Meaghan Kerr and Emily Carbone, of Lexington Henry Clay. Kerr is a tall, powerful senior, while Carbone is a small, but heady sixth grader. They dispatched the Grayson County pair with little difficulty in about a half-hour of play.
With Childress serving the first game, The Cougar pair started well, taking a 30-0 lead before the Lexington pair fought back to deuce. With Kerr and Carbone holding the advantage, Childress double-faulted on her serve and the Henry Clay pair had broken through. They went on to the 6-0 win in the first set.
Higdon served the first game of the second set and the Cougar pair again jumped out to the 30-0 lead, only to have to face a deuce game once again. This time, though, Higdon held serve and won their only game of the match. Kerr and Carbone won the next six games to win the set and the match, 6-0, 6-1.
In the boys match, Whitmore and Huffman faced Christian Mains and Shane Reynolds, a pair of unseeded seniors from Dixie Heights, a Northern Kentucky school. After winning the first set in fairly easy fashion, 6-2, the Cougar pair had to struggle back from 0-2, 1-3 and 2-4 deficits to earn to second set win.
Mains held service in the first game, then Whitmore began having some problems with his serve that cost the Grayson County pair some key points. He double faulted on game point in the second game to give Dixie Heights the 2-0 advantage. After the Cougars broke Reynolds in the third game, they won only one point with Huffman serving in the fourth and fell to 1-3.
The Cougars broke back on Mains to make it 2-3, but Whitmore again had a couple of double faults to lose serve and make it 2-4.
"For awhile there, I couldn't do anything with my serve," Whitmore said after the game.
The Cougar pair took advantage of a couple of breaks in the action when they had to chase loose balls that had gone into surrounding courts to talk strategy.
"We were talking about our depth on the court and about staying out of the middle," Huffman said.
The talks must have helped, because it was at this point that things began to turn around and it was Reynolds who began having big trouble with his serve. In the seventh game, Reynolds had two double faults and the Cougars broke his serve to make it 3-4. Huffman held serve in a deuce game to even things up, then they broke through on Mains to make it 5-4.
In the next game, Whitmore had an ace to make the score 30-40, but then he double faulted to lose the game and even things at 5-5.
However, Reynolds was up next on the serve and his double fault on game point gave the Cougars a 6-5 lead and Huffman came up to serve for the match. With the Cougars up 40-30, Whitmore made a winning volley at the net to give the Cougars the game, set and match.
For their Thursday efforts, on Friday the Cougar pair was slated to play the number-one seeded team in the tournament, Andy Sobczyk and Chris McCoy, of Louisville Trinity.
"The pressure won't be on us," Whitmore said of the formidable task they faced.
"We're just going to go out and play our game," Huffman said.
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