WARSAW – Not much happened in terms of eye openers at the first day of the 2017 Northern Lakes Conference Girls Tennis Championships. In fact, only one upset happened in any of the five brackets and the upset wasn’t much of one.

The lone non-seed to win Wednesday afternoon was Warsaw’s two doubles team of Rachel Boyle and Amy Herendeen, which swept past Wawasee’s four-seed team of Taylor Mock and Molly Jones 6-0, 6-1. It was an upset in the sense that Mock owned a win against Warsaw during the regular season, but neither Boyle or Herendeen were playing two doubles at the time, and Jones was filling in Wednesday for Mock’s original partner, Courtney Larson, who was ineligible to play Wednesday.

Otherwise, the tournament went pretty much to standard.

All five of Warsaw’s courts were winners, paced by the 6-1, 6-2 from Alyssa Zellers over Megan Huys of Elkhart Memorial. Zellers went undefeated in the NLC and is the top seed. Two singles two-seed Ella Knight wasn’t spotless against Wawasee’s Peyton Rookstool, but rode the waves of momentum to a 6-1, 6-3 win. Liza Lewis was in a shootout with NorthWood No. 1 Alex Jesse, but came through with a 6-4, 6-3 result to move on in the winner’s bracket.

At No. 1 doubles, two-seed Colette Smith and Athena Schlitt had no trouble in dispensing Northridge’s Jordan Kauffman and Kylee Bontrager 6-0, 6-1.

“We’re dealing with some sickness, especially with our singles play, and it showed at times,” said Warsaw head coach Rick Orban. “It’s hard to play when you can’t breathe. But they fought, and that was what I wanted to see. Alyssa rolled, one doubles looked good, and two doubles came together well and got a win for us. Just to get all five courts through is huge. The only way to win this thing is to get all five through the first round.”

NorthWood had four of its five courts pick up wins in the first round. Four-seed Reagan Miller was steady in a 6-1, 6-1 win against Memorial’s Hannah Hakim in the two singles bracket, and four-seed Hannah Walter went back and forth with Northridge’s Sarah Hartman in the three singles bracket. Hartman took the first game 6-3, only for Walter to rally from a game down to take the second 6-4. Walter would close out the match 6-0 to continue on.

The one doubles tandem of Kennedy Wiens and Jama Rice held up its four-seed to beat Concord’s Emma Westlake and Keegan Thursby 6-3, 6-2 and the two doubles two-seed of Betsy Nunemaker and Katie Troyer took care of Goshen’s Brooke Grewe and Anna Podgorski 6-2, 6-2.

“Hannah saw (Hakim) in the regular season, and didn’t see Hartman, so today was a little bit of a challenge, same with Reegan, she didn’t see Hannah since she was a three singles player,” said NorthWood head coach Tiffiny Schwartz. “Everyone was seeded for us except Alex at number one singles, and that is just a tough bracket. We knew we had an advantage based off our seeds, so to have us get four wins today sets us up for where we want to be going into the next round.”

Wawasee had just one court pick up a win on the championship side, that from its four-seeded one doubles team of Kabrea Rostochak and Kendra Doerr. Shuffling side to side, the Wawasee duo hustled past Goshen’s Claire Penner and Elise Liechty 6-2, 6-2 to move on.

The Lady Warriors didn’t have any other luck in its singles play, with Meg Heinisch shut out by Plymouth’s Lanae Singleton and Elizabeth Kleopfer also getting knocked out by a Plymouth player, this one to Ashley Harrell in a 6-0, 6-1 result.

“I want them moving, switching and giving their opponents different looks,” said Wawasee head coach Shane Staley of his one doubles duo. “They did a good job of that today. I wanted them to make sure they kept up the aggressive play.”

Top seeds Krystal Grubb of Memorial at one singles, Regan Landis of Concord at two singles, Plymouth’s one doubles and Concord’s two doubles combined to lose just nine games in their victories.

Warsaw and Plymouth have all five of its courts playing on the winner’s bracket in the second round. Concord and NorthWood have four courts and Memorial and Wawasee have one apiece.

Play resumes Thursday at Warsaw with consolation play and championship semifinals. The finals for each side of the bracket are scheduled for Friday at Warsaw.