Not only is Rosary freshman tennis star Maria Goheen unbeatable, she’s also unflappable.
Unfazed by a scoring disagreement in the title match, Goheen beat West Aurora’s Liz Stefancic 6-3, 7-5 in Saturday’s finals of the Waubonsie Valley Sectional to improve to 24-0 in her brief high school career.
Until the second set of Saturday’s final, no player this season had taken more than three games off Goheen in a set.
But that changed in the second set when Stefancic rocketed out to a 4-0 lead. Problem was, Stefancic thought she was up 5-0.
After a lengthy discussion, the 4-0 score was deemed correct, and that’s when Goheen caught fire, winning seven of the next eight games to close out the match.
Goheen is Rosary’s first sectional singles champion since Emily Reuland won three straight from 2007-09, and it helped Rosary win its first team title since 2009.
“Maria got tested today, against an opponent probably playing the best tennis she’s ever played,” Rosary coach John Tseng said. “She has been phenomenal this season.”
All day Saturday, youth was served on the courts at Waubonsie, as Aurora Christian’s doubles team of freshmen Madie Jurasek and Shelby Johnson also earned a sectional title.
As for Goheen, she said she “wasn’t mad” when the score dispute arose. “But usually when I get annoyed, that’s when I start to play better.”
Goheen pointed to an adjustment she made against the left-handed Stefancic as being a key to the second-set comeback..
“Because she was left-handed, me hitting to backhand was to her forehand,” Goheen said. “She was just killing all those shots. I needed to hit it to her backhand.”
Goheen is the second in her family to win a sectional title. Older sister Angelina Goheen was a doubles champ in 2010.
“Maria has always been with us, always on the sidelines,” Tseng said. “To have her on the other side of the fence has been a huge joy and an honor. She weathered the storm today, stayed resilient and played her game. The ebbs and flows of tennis are interesting. (The disagreement) was a wake-up call.”
Stefancic, whose older sister Emily won two sectional titles at West Aurora, dropped a 6-0, 6-0 match to Goheen on Oct. 3. She grew quite a bit in the rematch, following a 6-1, 6-2 win over Oswego East’s Jaiere Harlow in the semifinals.
“She raised it to another level,” West Aurora assistant coach Neil Ormond said. “Getting her to focus to the next point and the next game were the keys.”
Jurasek and Johnson beat IMSA’s Grace Park and Priya Sharma 6-0, 6-3 in the doubles final, but the real test came in the semifinals.
There, the Aurora Christian pair, now 16-2, topped Waubonsie Valley’s top-seeded team of Abbey Glavin and Serena Zhu 6-2, 3-6, 6-4. Jurasek and Johnson broke Waubonsie’s serve at 4-4 in the third set, and came back from two break points in the clinching game.
“It was a big match. It’s fun to win sectionals with my best friend,” Jurasek said.
The top four finishers in singles and doubles advance to the state meet that starts Thursday at various sites in the Arlington Heights area.
Also qualifying was Waubonsie freshman Hannah Owens and Oswego East’s doubles team of Haley Clebanoff and Keertana Kota.
Joshua Welge is a freelance writer for The Beacon-News.
