Four of the eight girls who will be in Thursday’s NHIAA doubles tournament semifinals come from local schools – Concord’s Alex Killinger and Becky Cistulli, and Bishop Brady’s Sydney Herrington and Ravalika Damerla. They should be easy to spot on the Derryfield School courts with their Crimson Tide and Green Giants colors, but in case you need any help figuring out who’s who, those four girls will also be the ones buzzing around the court in classic attacking doubles style.
“We kind of try to get to the net as fast as we can and keep the points short and quick, rather than long drawn out rallies,” Damerla said.
“We were poaching a lot, crossing the middle line and picking off whatever we can at the net,” Killinger said about Concord’s wins in the early rounds of the tournament, a style they’ve been working on for years.
Herrington, a junior, will try to defend her singles titles on Wednesday in the final four of that tournament. Then she and Damerla, the second-seeded team, will face Bishop Guertin’s Claire Reynolds and Sara Schmitt, the No. 4 seed, in one of Thursday’s doubles semifinals. The other semi will see No. 3 Cistulli/Killinger take on the top-seeded team of Julia Chapelle and Krysten Walker from Manchester Central, the defending champs.
There’s little doubt that Chapelle and Walker will also be flying around the court looking for put-away volleys and quick points. They did plenty of that in both of their wins against Cistulli and Killinger this year, first in the regular season and then again in the playoffs. The Concord girls, both seniors, know they are in for a challenge, but they’re excited for another chance against the champs and they have a new game plan for Round 3.
“It’s great to make it to the semifinals and be able to play Julia and Krysten,” Cistulli said. “We were hoping to see them again.”
“We definitely want to reverse what we did last time and have an offensive strategy,” Killinger said. “I think the last two times we played them we were on defense most of the time. So we’ve been practicing a lot and trying to be more offensive. And we’ve been trying to practice against people with a lefty serve because of Julia, her serve is brutal.”
The Tide team may even try some different doubles formations. That’s what they did to come back in their quarterfinal against Pinkerton’s Zoe Freedman and Riley Reinert. Down a break late, Cistulli and Killinger went to an Australian formation where the net player starts in the middle of the court and then breaks right or left (or sometimes stays) after the serve. The switch worked and led Concord to an 8-6 win.
The Tide team can also lean on their friendship. Cistulli and Killinger first met as 4-year-olds at the Racquet Club of Concord (now the Health Club of Concord), started playing tennis together in middle school and have become very close over the last four years.
“We’re able to keep each other positive and motivated, and we can laugh about things when we mess up, we don’t get mad at each other,” Cistulli said. “Of course we have to be serious, too, but I definitely think that it’s better that we’re friends because we can feed off each other with the positivity.”
Damerla, a senior who will attend MIT next year, and Herrington have also developed a friendship that extends beyond tennis. That, and plenty of practice, has helped them create the kind of chemistry it takes to play seamless doubles.
“I think last year was when we learned each other’s style, and we also figured out the strategy that worked for us,” Damerla said. “So this year we could really work on perfecting that and becoming an even more cohesive team.”
They were pretty good last year, reaching the doubles semifinals. But there’s no question they’ve been better this year, going undefeated in the regular season against Division I competition after playing in D-II last year. The Green Giants went just 4-10 as a team in D-I, but their tennis got better.
“I think all of us had a lot of fun,” Damerla said. “Pretty much everyone we played was equal or better than us in skill, and they always say you get better by playing people who are better than you, so I think every single person on the team got so much better.”
It certainly seemed like the D-I schedule prepared Damerla and Herrington for the doubles tournament. They rolled their first two matches – an 8-0 win against the second team from Central and an 8-4 win against Derryfield’s Abi Leonardi and Olivia Husak, the No. 5 seed.
“We just executed exactly what we wanted to do,” Damerla said of those two wins. “We put our volleys away, hit our ground strokes how we wanted to and it worked out well.”
Things may or may not keep working out on Thursday, but there’s no doubt that the Green Giants, and Crimson Tide, will keep attacking.
“We’re just going to go out and play our game and have a great time playing tennis,” Damerla said. “If it’s good enough then we’ll win, but if it’s not, we’ll go down swinging.”
(Tim O’Sullivan can be reached at 369-3341 or tosullivan@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @timosullivan20.)