Heading into the finals of the girls Third Region Tennis Tournament, in Owensboro, the Lady Cougars were in excellent position to defend their regional crown.

Defending singles champion, senior Candace Skaggs, was in the final facing her old nemesis, Maggie Glaser, of Owensboro Catholic, whom Skaggs defeated for the title last year.

In the doubles competition, sophomore Renae Mantooth and freshman Paige Higdon were to face Daviess County’s duo of senior Miranda Pendley and junior Kaitlin Hizny.

The finals in both the boys and girls competition were to have been held at Moreland Park on Thursday, but rain forced it to be pushed back to Friday. Officials had arranged to have an indoor facility booked in case of rain, but that facility was having to deal with a leaky roof and could not host the finals.

Heading into the final day, the Lady Cougars were in a tie with the Lady Panthers of Daviess County. The key for the Lady Cougars would be the play of Mantooth and Higdon in the doubles. If they won their match, Grayson County would be the regional champion regardless of what happened in the singles final.

Should the Grayson County doubles team lose their match and Skaggs held serve in her match, the two teams would be forced into a head-to-head playoff. If things remain tied after a playoff, then the winner was to be decided by the highest percentage of wins by each team during the whole tournament.

Skaggs got her second day off to a good start by defeating Apollo’s Laura Ross, 6-1, 6-0 to reach the semi-final round. There she faced Owensboro seventh-grader Chandler Thompson, who was the third-seed entering the tournament. Skaggs quickly took the first set 6-0, but struggled to put away the talented middle school player in the second before finally prevailing 6-4.

The second-seeded Mantooth and Higdon had something of a similar situation in their first match of the day against the unseeded team of Tiffany Wright-Davis and Anna Herold, of Owensboro. They took the first set with ease, 6-1, but had to dig down to take the second set 7-5.

In the semi-final, they faced the fifth-seed, Katie Castlen and Kara Drury, of Owensboro Catholic. Castlen and Drury had pulled off a mild upset in their quarter-final match when they beat the fourth-seeded team of Devon Delaney and Courtney Newby, of Hancock County.

The Lady Cougar team got off to a quick start, winning the first three games, but Castlen and Drury were able to pull back to within 4-3. But the Grayson County pair won the final three games to take the first set 6-3. In the final set, Mantooth and Higdon lost only won game on their way to a 6-1 win.

The Cougar boys still had a pair of participants in the quarterfinal round as sophomore Devin Pence and freshman Isaac Skaggs took their first two matches. Unfortunately, both players were forced to play the two top seeds in their quarter-final matches and exited the tournament.

Pence was up against the powerhouse play of top-seeded junior Bobby Whitmer, of Daviess County. Whitmer showed no mercy as he took Pence 6-0, 6-0.

Skaggs was a little more evenly matched against Owensboro Catholic’s young, but talented C. J. Glaser. Skaggs took an early 3-2 lead in the first set before Glaser came on to win it by a 6-4 score. Skaggs seemed to tire a bit in the second as Glaser went on to take the match with a 6-3 win in the final set.

Be sure to look in Wednesday’s edition of the News-Gazette for the complete results of the Third Region Tennis Tournament.