From Ernest Bowker

Suffering from dehydration on a warm, muggy Saturday afternoon, Catherine Figueroa felt sick before her final match at the Julie Abraham Memorial Tournament.

An hour later, it was her opponents who were feeling ill.

Figueroa shook off the illness, along with a poor first set, and teamed with doubles partner Grace Ga-as to beat St. Aloysius’ Bonney Neill and Lauren Fordice 2-6, 6-0, 6-1.

The victory gave Figueroa and Ga-as the JAMT’s girls doubles titles, clinched the team title for Vicksburg High, and sent them into Monday’s Class 5A state tournament on a high note.

&#8220We got to work on our net work,” Figueroa said. &#8220I think if I stay consistent with my shots, we’ll do OK.”

Vicksburg also won championships in boys and girls singles, and totaled 10 points to edge Warren Central’s nine. St. Al finished with two points. The JAMT uses a round-robin format, with each match counting for one point.

The feature match of the afternoon was the girls doubles final, where a pair of teams bound for the state tournament got together for a tuneup match.

Neill and Fordice started strong, with the 6-foot tall Neill controlling the net and Fordice hitting sharp winners from the baseline. They took the first set 6-2, then fell apart after that.

Figueroa and Ga-as started to do a better job of keeping it away from Neill, and the St. Al tandem began to commit unforced errors en masse. Neill and Fordice only won one more game – the first of the final set – the rest of the match.

&#8220We started messing up. We didn’t make any mistakes that first set, then I don’t know what happened,” Fordice said. &#8220It really was just us. We hit them into the net, hit them out, everywhere. We just weren’t getting it back to them.”

Ga-as said she and Figueroa just got their act together after being routed in the first set.

&#8220Confidence, talking to each other. Teamwork, basically,” Ga-as said.

The rest of the JAMT served as both a warm-up for the state tournament, which starts Monday in Jackson, and a season-ending swan song for Warren County’s tennis teams.

Vicksburg’s Donald Brown, who will face Northwest Rankin’s Chase Black in the first round of the Class 5A boys singles tournament Monday at Parham Bridges Park, rolled to a pair of victories in the JAMT. He beat St. Al’s Nicholas Mason 6-0, 6-0, then routed Warren Central’s Paul Prudhomme 6-1, 6-2.

Vicksburg’s Christine Figueroa also cruised, dropping only one game in two girls singles matches Saturday. She beat WC’s Caitlyn Shelton 6-0, 6-1, then St. Al’s Alexandra Trichell 6-0, 6-0. Figueroa will face Jim Hill’s Tiffany Myles in the first round of the Class 5A tournament on Monday.

&#8220I thought we were challenged more this past week with St. Joe and Ridgeland. But playing competitive matches against anybody is better than practice,” Vicksburg coach Kevin Manton said.

Warren Central’s boys doubles team of Nick Melby and Steven Faulks are also headed to the state tournament, to face Tupelo’s twin tandem of Jason and Jody Vinson. The WC duo prepared for that match by beating another set of twins on Saturday – Vicksburg’s Bryan and Ryan Fisher.

Melby and Faulks dropped the first set against the Fishers, then gutted out the second set and cruised in a sloppy third set to win 2-6, 6-4, 6-0.

In mixed doubles, Warren Central’s Rowe Rhett and Kerrie Taylor-Leech beat Vicksburg’s Matthew Campbell and Brandi Ratliff in a three-set final 6-0, 3-6, 6-4.