Stephanie Boulenger went 1-2, losing to a pair of medal winners, during the Class 2 Missouri State Tennis Championships this past weekend at Cooper Tennis Complex in Springfield, Mo. A senior foreign exchange student at Park Hill South, Boulenger couldn’t advance past the first day of action on Friday, Oct. 16 despite winning the opening set of her second consolation match. Bridget Mayfield of Kirkwood came back to dominate the final two sets in a 6-7 (2), 6-1, 6-1 win to end Boulenger’s tournament.
Boulenger lost 6-3, 6-1 to Lee’s Summit North’s Logan Morrisey in the opening round, but she kept her tournament alive with a 6-2, 6-0 rout of Joplin’s Sydney Butler in the first round of consolation play. Winning the tiebreaker in the first set against Mayfield put Boulenger one set from guaranteeing a top-eight spot, but she couldn’t finish off the victory.
Morrissey went on to reach the semifinals and place fourth, while Mayfield won the seventh-place match.
Boulenger went 14-8 in singles this seas and helped Park Hill South reach the Class 2 state playoffs as a team for the ninth consecutive season. The Panthers advanced to quarterfinals for just the second time in that stretch but lost 5-0 to Notre Dame de Sion, just one win away from reaching the state semifinals and guaranteeing a state trophy.
Notre Dame de Sion went on to place third, losing 5-4 to eventual champion Rock Bridge in one semifinal before beating Jefferson City 5-1 in the third-place match.