Vicksburg and Warren Central battled down to a last match tiebreaker on Friday.

More of the same is expected today when the two schools join St. Aloysius for the 19th annual Julie Abraham Memorial Tournament at the Halls Ferry courts.

Julie Abraham

Memorial Tournament

Today, 10 a.m.

WC vs. St. Al vs. VHS

at Halls Ferry Park

WC’s Stuart English and Jalen Dagher won the third straight tiebreak Friday to beat Vicksburg’s No. 1 boys team of Fritz Valero and Perry Tolliver 6-2, 4-6, 10-8 to win Friday’s match.

“That was a big surprise for sure. I thought we were much better than how we played,” said first-year Vicksburg coach Vicky Bailey.

It was a tuneup of sorts for today’s de facto city championship at the Julie Abraham Tournament. The round-robin setup pits players from Warren Central, Vicksburg and St. Aloysius against each other.

Vicksburg is 10-3 in team match play this season, WC improved to 7-5 with Friday’s win, and St. Al won the Division 4-1A title on Thursday. The quality of all three teams should create an even matchup, St. Al coach Rick Shields said.

“All of these teams are pretty close together. We’ve lost two team matches all season and they were to Vicksburg and Warren Central by 4-3 scores,” Shields said. “Vicksburg is probably the stronger overall team because of how good they are in singles. But today showed that anything can happen because the boys doubles team from Warren Central pulled off an upset by winning the tiebreak.”

For WC coach Paige Pratt, close matches have been the norm this season. Five of the Vikings’ matches came down to the tiebreaker, and all of them were decided by 4-3 scores. Friday’s victory was just the second in those five matches.

“We won this one today and one at Brookhaven but lost the other three. Today, we had to either win the No. 1 girls or the No. 1 boys to pull this one out,” Pratt said.

Vicksburg rolled in singles, as expected. Donald Brown won 6-0, 6-1 while Christine Figueroa, a state champion last year in Class 4A girls doubles, defeated Kaylee Kilgo 6-1, 6-0.

Vicksburg got its third point from No. 1 girls doubles as Charlene Figueroa and Amanda Guizerix downed Lauren Pratt and Elizabeth Wooten 6-4, 6-0.

Warren Central came back to win both No. 2 and mixed doubles. The boys No. 2 duo of Robert Rhett and Jesse Tillotson defeated Vicksburg’s Caleb White and Perry Wolfe 6-4, 6-1. WC’s girls eam of Caroline Williams and Makayla Willis beat Vicksburg’s Jill McVan and Bailey Howington 6-0, 6-0.

Contact Jeff Byrd at jbyrd@vicksburgpost.com