‘So, so special.’ Unlikely duo from Henry Clay wins state tennis championship.
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Kentucky high school sports state championships
KHSAA state championships played out this weekend across four different sports in Lexington, and the Herald-Leader’s staff of writers and photographers covered all the action. Click below for highlights from the baseball, softball, tennis and track and field state championships.
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What do you get when you pair a battle-hardened state challenger with a talented, but unknown, competitor? A doubles team worthy of a state title.
Henry Clay’s Kennedy Herring and Katherine Nova defeated Caroline Elliott and Avery Voss, a duo out of Sacred Heart Academy, 6-2, 6-2, to win the girls’ doubles finals during the KHSAA Tennis State Championships at Top Seed Tennis Club on Thursday.
They became the first pair of Blue Devils to win state since 1995, and the first from a Lexington public school to achieve the feat since 2004 (Paul Laurence Dunbar). .
Herring, a senior who competed in her third state tournament, was named Miss Tennis by the Kentucky Tennis Coaches Association. Nova, a native of Venezuela who enrolled at Henry Clay this spring, is her third doubles partner in as many state appearances; Herring reached the quarterfinals in 2019 and last season.
Henry Clay took control after a 2-2 start in the first championship set. It won the next five games — the last four of the first set and the opener in set two — before Sacred Heart evened things at 1-1 in set two. Henry Clay won the next four games before a series of service errors by Herring, who shook off a wave of them late in set one, afforded the Valkyries another victory. The Blue Devils responded by scoring the first three points of the final game; Herring sealed the deal with a deep return placed down the sideline.
“Once it started to feel real, it freaked me out a touch,” Herring said. “It’s definitely really exciting. They’re a great team. We just played a really good match today, I think.”
Mere hours before cruising, relatively, against Elliott and Voss, the No. 3 seed, Herring and Nova had to come from behind in a match tiebreaker to knock off the No. 1 squad. They took set one from Oldham County’s Haley Klein and Laurel Slechter, 6-3, in the semifinals, before falling 7-5 in the second set. They trailed, 4-2, before rallying for a 10-6 tiebreaker decision. (There was almost a rematch of the 11th Region finals in the state championship: Lexington Catholic’s Hallie Lathram and Madison Miller were on the wrong side of a tiebreaker comeback, 11-9, by Sacred Heart in the other semifinal).
Herring actually started the year with a different partner, Lilly Hartmann, who was sidelined by an ACL injury midway through the season. Nova, athletically, was a great candidate to take her place, but she had no doubles experience before arriving in the States. She was a quick study, according to Herring.
“This is her last year at the school, and it was so good,” Nova said. “I’m very grateful to be on the court with her and get that championship with her.”
Kennedy’s father, John Herring, has been Henry Clay’s head coach since 2014. Her brother Andrew made the state championship match as a doubles player in 2010, a year before John joined the Blue Devils as an assistant.
“You knew they were getting better,” John said through tears after Thursday’s victory. “You knew they were learning. You knew they were listening well and had the potential. To have them make this run all of a sudden at the end? It’s just so, so special. So special.”
▪ It was all St. Xavier in the boys’ doubles finals. Tyler Bush and Tommy Scanlon defeated teammates Conner Brewer and Christopher Kaufmann — 6-1, 5-7, 1-0 (10-1) — for the crown. Bush was also named Mr. Tennis.
Singles showdowns
St. Xavier’s Eli Stephenson fended off Henry Clay’s Evan Duggal — 7-6 (10-7), 7-5 — to defend his boys’ singles title on Thursday.
Neither junior broke serve in the first set leading up to the tiebreaker. Duggal opened set two with a serve-breaking win and went up 2-0, and then 4-2. Stephenson won three straight games from there, and five of the last six.
“His serve was for sure the hardest thing for me today,” Stephenson said. “All the credit goes to him for how he played.”
Earlier in the day to reach the finals, Duggal defeated Covington Catholic’s Brady Hussey (6-3, 6-3) while Stephenson overcame North Oldham’s Eli Wood (7-6[7-4], 6-3). Both Duggal and Stephenson, as well as Hussey (a sophomore) will be expected to contend for next year’s championship.
“I left everything I could out on the court, and I played pretty well,” Duggal said. “He just played a little better than me today. I fought hard. I’ll try to get it next year.”
▪ Sacred Heart’s Allie Hammond defeated teammate Lilah Shallcross — 6-0, 7-5 — for the girls’ singles title. Both are sophomores.
Team standings
Boys—1. St. Xavier, t2. Covington Catholic, t2. North Oldham, 4. Elizabethtown
Girls—1. Sacred Heart, t2. Lexington Catholic, t2. North Oldham, 4. Henry Clay
This story was originally published June 2, 2022 at 11:04 PM with the headline "‘So, so special.’ Unlikely duo from Henry Clay wins state tennis championship.."
