BFFs meet at center court for the right to advance to districts
That was the featured match-up in the district play-in match between Strasburg's Sarah Dreher and Dover's Adele Pruni Tuesday, Oct. 4 at Dover Park during the Div. II sectional tennis tournament.
Dreher, a junior at Strasburg, is the only player on a team of one for the Tigers while Pruni, also a junior, actually attends Tuscarawas Central Catholic, but because her school does not offer tennis and she lives in the Dover School District, OHSAA rules allow her to compete with Dover.
But all of that aside, what made this play-in match so mesmerizing is that the two athletes are best friends.
Having known each other since seventh grade through all kinds of activities, Dreher and Pruni had the added burden of knowing that one way or the other, one of them was going to move on to districts while the other was going to go home.
“We play each other a lot, and it is always a competition,” Dreher said. “She wins. I win, and it is always very competitive. It would have been much easier to play someone else today, but it was still fun. She was obviously the better player today.”
The two friends have been united through several different activities including tennis, dance class and cheerleading.
They have developed an amazing bond of friendship, and that made sending Dreher packing all the tougher for Pruni.
“That was difficult,” Pruni said. “We talked to each other a lot when we were on the court, and so it was a friendly competition.”
Asked if she felt awful she had won, Pruni grinned and laughed.
“No,” she said. “She has beaten me plenty of times before, so I don't feel that bad.”
While Pruni won the match 6-2, 6-1, it was a far closer match than that score would indicate. Every game was tightly contested, most of them going into deuce games that extended play throughout the contest.
Dreher won her first two matches of the tournament with ease before coming up against the number-three seed in Kenzie Delposen of Beaver Local.
The unseeded Dreher played perhaps her best match of the tournament, delivering a decisive 6-0, 6-2 defeat to the seeded player to advance to the semifinal district qualifier match.
Pruni, the number two seed, made it look easy in reaching the semifinals to face Dreher. She received a bye in the opening round and then delivered a pair of 6-0, 6-0 wins.
Pruni, who played second singles all season, had to make the tough choice of staying in the singles or playing doubles and decided to stay where she was familiar, opting for singles play.
It paid off as she advanced to districts for the first time.
“I was comfortable playing singles, and I felt it would be tough to transition into doubles at the last second,” Pruni said. “We didn't have a lot of time to practice, so I figured I'd stick with singles and see how it turned out.”
How it turned out was that she got a date with Carollton superstar Taylor Fair, one of the favorites to win a state title this year in the sectional final.
However, having secured a spot in districts already, the pressure was off.
“I thought about qualifying for districts a lot this year, but I didn't want to be too overconfident, so I was just hoping and praying that I would make it,” Pruni said. “I am glad to be playing Fair after I already made it to districts.”
For Dreher, she now becomes one of her other athletic joys, a cheerleader. She said she hopes she can make it down to districts to root on not just Pruni, but also the Dover doubles team of McKenna Rose and Hailey Incarnato, two more very good friends with whom she has grown very close. Rose and Incarnato also qualified for district play.
“I practice with Dover at open courts in the offseason, and I know them so well, so it makes it easy to root for them when I am not playing against them,” Dreher said. “I am hoping that I can get down there to root them all on.”
As the lone player for Strasburg, getting quality practice time in can make a season challenging, but the Tigers junior has overcome that in making herself into a top-notch talent.
“It's been a good year, a fun year,” Dreher said.
For Pruni, the dream of competing at districts is one she will cherish regardless of what takes place.
“I am going to do the best I can, and whatever happens, happens,” she said.