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North upends Roseburg for district title Chaney and Leever win the girls doubles championship Defending Class 4A state doubles champion Annie Chaney accomplished something Saturday that had eluded the North Medford junior tennis player. Chaney, who won last year's state doubles title with Leslie Schultz, added a district doubles championship to her resume during the concluding day of the Southern Oregon Conference girls tournament at District Courts. In last year's district tournament, Chaney and Schultz were knocked off by Roseburg's Becky Correll and Elisa Tryon in a three-set match. But on Saturday, Chaney and partner Shannon Leever cruised to a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Ashland's Ali Gardiner and Jessica Baker. North Medford, with three doubles team qualifying for state, upset pre-tournament favorite Roseburg for the Black Tornado's sixth straight SOC crown. North Medford scored 37 team points to Roseburg's 34. Ashland placed third with 29. Grants Pass (19), Klamath Union (11) and South Medford (8) completed the order of finish. "When you win the hard ones as underdogs, it seems more important than winning the ones you're supposed to win," North Medford coach Dale Jensen said. "We have a winning tradition. After a while, the girls come in expecting to win. There's high expectations." North Medford's formula for winning district again was advancing three doubles teams into Saturday's semifinals. Chaney and Leever improved to 11-0 on the season by limiting their mistakes in the championship match against the Ashland pair. "Probably the best thing they (Chaney-Leever) did was keep the ball in play," said Jensen. "They returned well, served well and didn't try to do too much." North's April Louie and McKenzie Hilmer beat teammates Melissa Witten and Beth Alston, 2-6, 6-2, 6-1, for third place. En route to the semifinals, the Witten-Alston tandem helped North's cause by knocking off Roseburg's No. 4-seeded Lynsee Gonzales and Sonu Allen. Roseburg, which ended North's 47-match SOC winning streak and beat the Black Tornado in two regular season duals this season, came into districts a four-point favorite on paper, according to Jensen. "Roseburg's girls came up flat," said Jensen. "They didn't play like they did during the regular season. They were the team during the regular season, but district is what counts and we geared up for districts." Roseburg's downfall came when top-ranked Stacy Wetmore was defeated in the semifinals by Ashland's Justine Bowen-Jones. Then Megan Moon of Grants Pass, who lost to eventual singles champion Correll, outlasted Wetmore in a three-set match for third place, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4. The No. 2-seeded Correll breezed to a straight set love victory over Bowen-Jones in the finals. In the consolation rounds, Ashland's Kendall Danielle defeated Megan Siepert of Roseburg for the singles title, 6-4, 6-7, 6-3, while Lilee Chan and Jenny Lund of Klamath Union won the doubles with a 6-7, 6-3, 6-4 victory against Kirsten Evenson and Valerie Jannelli of Roseburg. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.