Oak Lawn sophomore Alexis Fletcher sat out last season when she transferred from Morgan Park Academy in September.
She is more than making up for the lost time this year.
Fletcher is putting up an impressive resume, which includes winning the No. 1 singles division of the eight-team Lemont Invitational Saturday afternoon.
She downed Bolingbrook’s Jessica Innis, 6-2, 6-0, and Morris freshman Megan Davy, 6-0, 6-1 before defeating Lemont’s Lisa Gawron, 6-2, 6-4 in the finals. Fletcher had a 5-1 lead evaporate in the second game before pulling off the victory.
“I thought I had it at 5-1,” Fletcher said. “But then she came back. I had a little bit of a letdown.
“Even though the score was 6-0, 6-1, the semifinal was a tough match. Some of the games went down to the last point. She’s pretty good and just a freshman.’’
It is Fletcher’s second invitational triumph of the season as she also won a tourney hosted by Grayslake Central and Grayslake North earlier in the month. She also finished third in the Lockport tournament last week.
Morris won the team title with 29 points followed by the Indians (25), Lincoln-Way Central (22) and Oak Lawn (20).
The Redskins’ first doubles team of juniors Monica Davy-Leah Lines finished first, knocking off Bolingbrook’s Saukhya Gumidyala-Sydney Bush 6-0, 6-1 in the title match.
Morris’ No. 2 doubles team of Carly Williamson-Savannah Carter took second, dropping a 7-5, 6-2 decision to Lincoln-Way Central’s Jana Madrock-Marlee McCabe.
Megan Davy finished third at No. 1 singles and teammate Emma Dingbaum took second at No. 2 singles.
The Redskins won six of their first nine dual matches and won a quadrangular at Lincoln-Way Central.
“So far, so good,” Redskins coach Becky Ortega. “We had a lot of returning players. Our first doubles team made it to state last year and with that success, we thought we would stay with that. We’ll see what next year brings but this year they are doing a great job together.”
Lemont, which picked up a championship when Carli Serpe knocked off Dingbaum 6-4, 6-3, came up short of the team title for the second straight year but veteran coach Chris Hill said he was happy with the finish.
“Morris has some really, really good players,” he said. “My kids fought hard and played well. They’ve gotten better. The ball didn’t fall our way the way I would have liked, but they played hard. That’s all I ask for. There was some good talent in the tournament.”
