By TIM ADAMS

Sports editor

The Oak Harbor High School tennis team had the vaunting task of playing the second-place Snohomish Panthers Thursday afternoon in the final home match of the 2009 season.

Coach Horace Mells said his young team has made a lot of progress this season despite having a record of 3-11.

“It just comes down to the fact that we don’t have as much depth as some of the other teams in the league do,” he said. “We have some strong singles players and when we are able to win the singles matches, we have the chance to beat just about everybody in the WesCo. The problem is, many of the other teams have strong singles players as well in addition to good first doubles teams as well, so every match ends up being a tough one for us.”

Against Snohomish, the Wildcats managed to win the first two singles matches, but the strong Panthers captured the five remaining matches to lift their season record to 12-3 in the WesCo North with a 5-2 victory.

Senior Jennifer Jansen, playing her final home first singles match for the purple and gold, defeated Panther Natalie Kaltbrunner in straight sets, 6-0, 6-4.

Erin Nielon was the winner for Oak Harbor in second singles, also in straight sets, topping Melissa Cook 6-0, 7-5.

Playing fourth singles, Oak Harbor’s Katie O’Dell nearly made it three match wins, taking Molly Thunder to three sets before falling 6-3, 4-6, 6-4.