Three girls tennis players, freshman Kiley Rabjohns, sophomore Salma Alsikafi, and sophomore Nika Belova, will head west to Buffalo Grove High School and Hoffman Estates High School to represent Lake Forest at the IHSA State Championships.
Rabjohns, who won the Highland Park IHSA Sectional last weekend and is working on an undefeated season, will face off against Lane Tech’s Hallie Leblebijian in her opening match and will play the winner of Meera Baid of Metea Valley and Chloe McIsaac from Belleville Easy. Rabjohns, who swept NSC play this season, will have a good shot of advancing to the tournament’s second and third day. She earned a 4th seed overall in the tournament (the committee only seeds the top 16 players), and is looking to advance far in her first IHSA State Championship bracket. Though there are no familiar conference foes in her immediate bracket, Rabjohns will recognize Deerfield’s Emily Casati in her bottom half of the brakcet and will hope to square off against her in the IHSA Championship Quarterfinal. There are 64 singles players vying for the IHSA State Title. Rabjohns will play her opening round matches at Buffalo Grove High School, the tournament’s flagship site.
The doubles team of sophomores Salma Alsikafi and Nika Belova, who earned 2nd place at the IHSA Sectional at Highland Park last week, earned an unseeded trip to the finals and will play at Hoffman Estates High School, an early round site, against Elizabeth Stefancic and Maria Goheen of West Aurora. Their first round opponent is the #2 overall seed in the tournament, but has not faced any NSC competition all year. Look for the young, dynamic pair of Scouts to test the highly-touted West Aurora team in a 3-set match. The winner of Alsikafi and Belova’s opening round match with West Aurora will then play the winner of the doubles match between Normal Community and Shepard High School in Palos Heights. If the Scouts survive round one, look for them to make a deep run in the IHSA Championships. As is the case with singles, there are 64 separate doubles teams that qualify for the tournament.
