Filips, Macali win MEC doubles gold

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — The Maryville girls’ tennis team, which clinched the Midland Empire Conference regular-season title with Tuesday’s 5-4 win at Chillicothe, competed in Wednesday’s MEC Tournament.

The highlight of the tournament for the Spoofhounds came with senior Kelly Filips and junior Lauren Macali’s first-place finish in doubles. The pair received the one-seed to earn a first-round bye before topping Kaylin Silvey and Haleigh Peters of Benton, 8-0.

Filips and Macali then beat Nauy Bui and Katie Joe (Bishop LeBlond), 6-1, 6-0 and took the first-place match against Renee Downing and Julie Minnis of Chillicothe. The title match went 6-3 in favor of Downing/Minnis in the first set before Filips and Macali took sets two and three, 6-1 and 6-2.

The Spoofhounds also recorded the fifth-place doubles team in senior Maddy Stelter and junior Bailey White. Stelter and White defeated Benton’s Kiri Mignery and Lakih Johnson, 6-2, before dropping their second match of the day to Morgan Choate and Taylor Richardson (Cameron), 8-5.

Stelter and White recovered with an 8-0 win against Lafayette’s combo of Krystal Henderson and Taryn Miller, then topped Savannah’s Kacey Logsdon and Lauren Maize, 8-6, to head to the fifth-place match against Madison Gipe and Caitlin Fechtig of Chillicothe. There, Stelter and White clinched their fifth-place medal with an 8-0 sweep.

The highest singles finisher for Maryville was junior Bethel Orshiso, who notched a sixth-place mark. Orshiso started the day with a loss to Jacey Cornelius of Savannah, 8-6, and then bounced back with an 8-0 win against Bishop LeBlond’s Molli Bell, an 8-3 victory against Lafayette’s Ashlyn Dotson, and an 8-5 win over Benton’s Stephanie Brown. In the fifth-place match, Orshiso dropped the decision to Meka Betts (Benton.)

Maryville (11-1) plays Benton at 4 p.m. Thursday at the Northwest tennis courts in the regular-season finale.