Cherry Creek junior Caroline Schnell sprays shots all over the court. The forehand, backhand and slice drop shots are part of her game, but there’s another weapon at her disposal — confidence.
“I feel really confident. I think I’m playing probably, ending the season, at my best. So I’m really looking forward to state,” said the 2008 state champion, who scored a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Poudre’s Natalie Dunn on Saturday in the No. 1 singles final at the Cherry Creek Invitational.
Schnell’s victory was one of seven in the final round of the two-day tournament for Cherry Creek’s No. 1 team as the Bruins won the meet with 42 points. Ponderosa, which had five finalists, came in second with 25 points and Chatfield third with 16.
“We have such a young team. We only have four returning players, so I was really curious how we’d hold up with all these matches in a row. I’m really pleased with how they played and how they supported each other,” Cherry Creek coach Chris Jacob said. “We still have some things to work on, but overall they played really well. I was excited to see how our younger players held their nerves together in a tough environment.”
Schnell opened her match against Dunn with a 4-0 lead, breaking Dunn twice in the first three games. She broke her again to cap the first set, but the second set proved to be a tougher task. Both players held serve through the first five games, but then things turned. Neither player could hold the rest of the match, finally ending after Schnell forced deuce, then broke Dunn with a forehand winner.
“The second set, her serve, she was hitting it really hard. She was playing a little more consistent in the second set. It was tougher,” Schnell said.
Dunn, who suffered her first loss of the season a day after she topped 2007 state champion Erin Sanders from Ponderosa, knew Schnell’s game was solid and that to compete against her required consistency. Dunn wasn’t consistent early on, but she hit her stride in the second set and made things interesting throughout.
“You just try to get in a rhythm returning and just make sure you time it well,” Dunn said of how to attack Schnell’s balanced game, something she struggled with in a 6-0, 6-1 loss last year to the Cherry Creek standout in the state tournament semifinals. “Eventually it’s hard to hit so many hard serves. You’ll be a little less consistent with the serve next time around.”
Schnell’s serve didn’t lose much throughout, and she recorded six aces — the final one coming in the last game won on serve.
Ironically, in a meet in which Cherry Creek won the championship finals in each division, the tournament’s last match pitted the Bruins against each other. In the No. 4 doubles finals, Lauren Broyhill and Krysta Zayac of Cherry Creek’s No. 1 team beat teammates Bree Hester and Alex Johnson, representing the Bruins’ No. 2 team, 7-6, 5-7, 6-4.
