ESSEX – Bea Molson climbed the ranks of Vermont high school girls tennis as fast as her returns blew past her competitors.
The Mount Mansfield freshman hit the court running after spending last year with the Cougars program as an eighth grader. And in her first official year in Jericho, Molson soared to an undefeated title run.
In straight sets, top-seeded Molson became the first girls singles individual champion in MMU program history, outing Burlington’s Georgia Wool 6-1, 6-4, at The Edge Sports and Fitness complex in Essex on Saturday.
“It makes me feel proud and excited because it was our first one,” Molson said of the title win. “I just wanted to represent Mount Mansfield because were not a very big school who wins a lot, so it was cool to finally win.”
Molson, who broke every service from Wool en route to the dominating performance, leads a Cougars team with nine freshmen to just one senior.
“We’ve got a lot of enthusiasm for girls tennis,” MMU coach Sandra Fary said. “There are a lot of girls that want to start playing year-round and Bea has been a real inspiration for our team and a leader on our team that has just sort of brought out a passion.”
MMU athletic director David Marlow: “It (the championship win) shows how far our program came and both coaches, Sandy and Edye Graning, have really started to develop a culture of girls tennis in Jericho.”
In the second set Molson, who only dropped one set the entire season — a 7-5 decision in the quarterfinals of the three-day tournament — seized a 5-4 advantage before closing out the match and championship.
“She’s a model of etiquette. She’s obviously got beautiful strokes and strategy. And players look up at her skill set and try to be like Bea in some ways,” Fary said.
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Before the championship third-seeded Wool had won three of her four matches in straight sets.
“Her level of tennis is better than anything that we’ve seen,” Graning said of Molson. “And even today there was super high competition, Georgia played a phenomenal match. She was hitting winners. A lot of credit should go to both players.”
Despite the convincing win, Molson was reserved in her abilities.
“When I’m playing a match I don’t really like to think too much,” Molson said. “I just kind of use what’s in the back of my head. But I knew that I was a good player. I just I didn’t think I was going to go this far.”
O’Donnell wins boys singles crown
Nick O’Donnell claimed the boys singles title. The Burr and Burton junior bested Nathan Kim of Brattleboro 7-6, 6-2 for the individual championship.
O’Donnell, the top-seeded boys singles from the South region, beat South Burlington’s Sriram Sethuraman (6-3, 6-3) in the semifinals. He is the second Bulldog in program history to be crowned champion and first since Denis Krasnenkov in 2000.
Stowe girls repeat in doubles
The Stowe tandem of Gabby Doehla and Kate Tilgner paired again to win the girls doubles championship for the second straight year.
Doehla and Tilgner won the title 6-2, 6-1 over Wynne Adamson and Lilla Erdos of South Burlington. The Raiders duo won each of their three tournament matches in straight sets — again for the second-consecutive year.
This was the third overall title for Stowe in girls doubles.
SJA tandem top boys doubles field
St. Johnsbury’s Augustin Gil Tricio and Javier Berenguer Puche won in straight sets (6-4, 6-2) over Burlington’s Nevin Morton and Kheim Nguyen.
Tricio, a native of Mexico, transferred a nationally ranked background in padel, a racket sport typically played in doubles on a smaller surface than tennis, from his home state of Coahuila, into a championship season with the Hilltoppers.
Puche, originally from Spain, competed for Arena Tennis Alicante in his home country before attending SJA.
The duo, who are primarily singles players, had never played together before the tournament and won each match in straight sets as the top seed.
“They’re both new this year so I had never really seen them play, but they both have good volleys and serves and they played well together,” St Johnsbury coach Dan Bosco said.
“I thought they would work really well as doubles and they mostly speak Spanish and are really good friends and it just seemed like it would work.”
It was the first doubles title win for SJA since 2019 and second overall.
Contact Jacob Rousseau at JRousseau@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter: @ByJacobRousseau
