WARSAW – …then two if by Smith. The duo of Ella Knight and Colette Smith both won singles titles for Warsaw Friday night at the Northern Lakes Conference Girls Tennis Championships. Knight, crowned during the light of day. Smith, as night fell upon a waning dusk over Tiger Town.

Knight was plain as day in her approach on the three singles court, wanting to and doing so in a power display over Plymouth’s Cortni Cook. Knight jumped out to a quick 4-1 lead in the first set, and despite the call for a line judge, continued to play her game in a 6-3, 6-0 final.

Without much show of emotion, Knight was the first championship off the court in about an hour.

“Towards the middle of the match, I lessened up just a little bit and started to play (Cook’s) match. Towards the end, I told myself I needed to focus and needed to win it,” Knight said. “I’m really excited to be a champion. It’s a big deal and important going into the sectional next week.”

Smith, on the other hand, was still trading groundstrokes and lobs with Memorial’s Taylor Freedline in the two singles championship well after half the teams left the tournament. Smith jumped out to a 6-2 win in game one and looked to be on her way, taking a 4-3 lead in the second set with the serve. But Freedline, whose only loss in the NLC was to Smith in the round robin, battled back to tie the second set at six. Smith again held advantage in the tiebreaker, but lost it, with Freedline scoring the final three points to take it 8-6.

In the third set, the court lights shone down and the 100-plus milled around with dinner in hand as all the remaining courts had long since been settled. Smith again jumped up a game and worked her way to 5-4, but Freedline, who appeared the more fresh of the two battlers, rallied. Freedline and Smith played to deuce on four occasions, with Freedline having advantage twice, only for Smith to take the final two points and a marathon 6-2, 7-6 (8-6), 6-4 singles championship.

“I just thought about the feeling of winning, and doing it for the team,” an exhausted Smith said after her three-plus hour match. “It was a little nerveracking, knowing all these people were watching. But I kinda liked it because I like to play under pressure. It gave me more motivation.”

Warsaw as a whole had four of its five courts in action Friday. At No. 1 singles, Liza Lewis took on Concord’s Alana Brubaker, with the Concord junior beating the Warsaw sophomore 6-4, 6-4 to claim third place.

At No. 1 doubles, Warsaw’s Athena Schlitt and Hannah Rice earned third place overall with a 6-4, 6-2 win against Memorial’s Layla Jojo and Maggie Dickerson.

Warsaw’s two doubles finished seventh Thursday evening.

“At two singles, it’s pretty rare that even for someone who is undefeated like (Smith) was, you don’t usually see them get all-conference,” said Warsaw head coach Rick Orban. “It didn’t take much for me to say other than ‘do you really want to go the entire season undefeated and then lose your final match?’ That was about it. Lette is extremely competitive and the fact that Taylor beat her during the varsity invite, that helped give Lette some added motivation.”

At No. 1 singles, two-time champion Krystal Grubb of Memorial made it three in a row, but had a mighty fight on her hands with NorthWood’s Sydney Wysong. Grubb labored through a 6-3 first set win, and found herself trailing in the second set only to come back and win 7-6 (7-2). Wysong entered the tournament as the three-seed.

Plymouth’s one doubles top-seeded team of McKenzie Scheetz and Kendall Dreibelbis beat NorthWood’s Jama Rice and Kennedy Weins 6-4, 7-5, and the Memorial two doubles tandem of Hannah Hakim and Mackenzie Williams, coming in as the four-seed, upset Plymouth’s Kayla Hoober and Leah Smith 6-2, 6-2.

The one doubles championship for Plymouth and loss by Freedline shored up the final team results, which pushed Plymouth to 44 points over Memorial’s 41 for the team title. Warsaw finished third with 39 points and NorthWood was right behind at 38. Concord (27), Northridge (21), Goshen (11) and Wawasee (0) concluded the standings.