THE JOURNAL & TOPICS NEWSPAPERS | WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 2008
Talk About A Comeback
Wheeling's Lepcin, Fifth In State, Rebounds From Early Loss
By DWIGHT ESAU
Journal Sports
With all due respect to state champion Karishma Kollipara, Wheeling's Ashley Lepcin may have put on the most impressive performance at last weekend's state badminton finals.
Playing eight matches (the most among all 128 entrants), against the state's best players and with her back to the wall in every one, she put on one of the biggest rallies in recent state history.
She went to Eastern Illinois University in Charleston last Saturday intent on winning a top-six state medal. After losing in round three of the championship bracket on Friday, she had to rally in the backdraw and win five consecutive matches, four of them on Saturday, to accomplish her goal.
She did exactly that.
She fashioned a 7-1 record, second-best won-loss mark in the state tournament, to finish fifth, the best finish by a Wheeling player in school history. She was joined in the state's top-16 by teammate Karolina Sabaliauskaite, who lost her first match and then rallied to take three out of four matches in the backdraw.
Lepcin's coach, Carl Watschke said he was most impressed with Lepcin's dramatic come-from-behind victory over Fremd's Erica Lee in the consolation quarterfinals on Saturday morning. "She was down 15-20 to a state-ranked opponent, and it looked impossible," he said. "But she found a way to tie it up at 20 and then win it in overtime, 23-21. That was kind of as turning point for her in the consolation backdraw. That kind of a comeback rarely happens at state. She went on with a lot of renewed confidence to win her final two matches."
To cap off her achievement, Lepcin put an exclamation point on her day, and got revenge on the only player who beat her in the tournament, Alexis Ward of Hinsdale Central, by defeating Ward in a three-game match for fifth place.
"I believe Ashley was seeded wrong in the first place," Watschke said. "She beat two of the girls seeded above her. If she would have beaten Ward the first time, she probably would have reached the state championship game."
Lepcin started out Friday by easily defeating Alison Ledbetter of St. Charles East and Emily Sothikhoun of Larkin in the first two rounds.
Then, in round three against Ward, Lepcin lost a tough opening game, 22-20, and then dropped game two, 21-15. Later that afternoon, in the fourth round of the consolation bracket, she started her uphill climb with a two-game win over Lauren Onderisin of Willowbrook.
On Saturday, with limited rest between matches, she defeated Sherry Lin of Downers Grove South in two games, rallied to eliminate Lee in the quarters, ousted Carrie Miarecki of Lincoln Way East in the semifinals, and then won the rematch with Ward, 21-14, 8-21, 21-18 to secure her fifth place medal.
Lepcin and Sabaliauskaite, along with Shannen Chechang and Sakina Khan in doubles, scored 6 team points to put Wheeling in 12th place among 41 teams at state. This also is the best overall point total for a Wildcat badminton team in school history.
None of the Journal-area's other 24 state qualifiers made it to the championship quarterfinals. Meagan Matias of Hersey, Klara Schroederus of Glenbrook South, and Hailey Miller of Hersey won first round singles matches, but all were sent to the backdraw in the next round and were eliminated soon afterward.
In doubles, Julie Provenza and Lindsay Miller of Prospect, Holly Anderson and Larissa Binkus of Conant, Katie Meyer and Stephanie Yang of Hersey, and Evelyn Chou and Alex Winans of Glenbrook South all won first round matches, but all were knocked out of the championship bracket in round two.
Chou and Winans rallied to win four matches in the backdraw, but were eliminated in the consolation quarterfinals.