WOOSTER — Amiya Bowles fell to the court in celebration and relief upon winning her second consecutive Division II state singles championship Friday, soaking in the moment as if it had been the first.
The Bexley sophomore insisted it felt the same as last year, even though a 6-1, 6-2 win over Cincinnati Indian Hill’s Martha Thompson at Aspen Racquet Club kept Bowles undefeated halfway through her prep career and further put her into increasingly rarified air in Ohio high school tennis. Even the matchup was the same as a year ago, when Bowles won 6-0, 6-3.
“I said it last year, but it’s really relieving and (a feeling) of, ‘Wow,’ ” Bowles said. “People might think the feeling is more neutral, but it definitely feels the same.”
Bowles became the 21st two-time singles champion and the 11th repeat winner in state history, regardless of division. She also is the second two-time winner in Bexley history after Jane Cohodes (1980, 1982).
In a dramatically different match, Columbus Academy seniors Yasemin Bilgin and Arya Chabria brought central Ohio a second championship with a 7-6 (7-6), 4-6, 7-5 win over Shaker Heights Hathaway Brown’s Kate Mills and Summer Mu in the Division II doubles final.
Bowles, who swept Eaton’s Mallory Hitchcock 6-1, 6-3 in a semifinal earlier Friday, controlled the final throughout and fell behind only briefly at 2-1 in the second set. She finished this season 19-0 and is 40-0 over the past two years.
“Her spin is so much more than the other opponents and she just puts everything away,” said Thompson, who also is a sophomore. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a short ball or a deep ball, she just puts it away.”
Bilgin and Chabria, who defeated Toledo Ottawa Hills’ Catherine Rhegness and Bryn Thompson 6-0, 6-3 in a semifinal, used words like “numb” and often completed each other’s sentences in their excitement to describe a 3-hour, 10-minute match that was every bit as tight as the score might indicate.
“We never expected it to be that long, but every point was good,” Chabria said. “We really grinded. We worked as hard as we possibly could to pull it off. We expected it to be close. We never expected that if we were up, we were automatically going to win.”
Bilgin added: “I felt nothing the entire match. If I did, my legs would have been shaking. It might catch up to us later.”
The tournament was moved indoors because of rain. The first two rounds Thursday were at the College of Wooster.
New Albany seniors Paige Cornelius and Richardlyne Francois lost to Mason’s Pratyusha Chaudhuri and Emma Wagner 6-0, 6-1 in the Division I doubles final, finishing as state runner-up for the second consecutive season.
“They were consistent and aggressive,” said Cornelius, a Harvard field hockey commit. “They did everything they were supposed to. Their serves were good, returns were good. Our serves have been really beneficial throughout the tournament and we’ve played opponents who haven’t been able to get them back, but they did.”
Cornelius and Francois defeated Dublin Jerome seniors Adayla Coakley and Lydia Foster 6-3, 6-2 in one semifinal. Worthington Kilbourne senior Libby Alderman and sophomore Tyra Butler lost 6-4, 6-1 to Chaudhuri and Wagner in the other, and Coakley and Foster took third with a 6-2, 6-7 (3-7), 6-3 win over the Kilbourne duo.
“Every time we play them (twice in doubles this season in addition to singles matches), it’s super close,” Foster said of Alderman and Butler. “You can never predict the score, but we knew it wouldn’t be easy. I’m happy with this. We gave it everything we had.”
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