Madi Austin serves for Negaunee in the No. 3 doubles match in a high school girls tennis meet against Marquette on Thursday at Negaunee High School. (Journal photo by Amy Grigas)

NEGAUNEE — Negaunee proved it’s the top of the heap among Marquette County girls tennis teams after knocking off its top competition on back-to-back days.

After Wednesday’s 5-3 victory at Westwood, the Miners defeated Marquette 6-2 on Thursday at home to improve to 4-1.

“We said before this week that we had to grow up as a team within two meets,” NHS head coach Kyle Saari said. “We took two major steps in doing that. (The Miners players) understand expectations don’t change and it’s an encouraging week.”

He was pleased with Negaunee’s Thursday sweep of doubles, particularly with the No. 4 tandem of Daylyn Drew and Emma Miller.

“Emma and Daylyn played terrific and they’ll give us some stability moving forward,” their coach said. “Really all of our doubles flights did a lot of good things.”

Drew and Miller upended Marquette’s Alyson LaBelle and Julianna Golisek 6-2, 6-0 as all eight flights were determined in straight sets.

The Miners’ No. 1 doubles pair of Katelyn Lammi and Morgan Carlson got past the Redettes’ Ryleigh Jackson and Kennedy Tate in the most closely contested match of the meet, 6-2, 6-4.

Marquette got its two victories at the top of singles. MSHS’ Elysa Oliver scored a 6-1, 6-1 win over Lilly Nelson at No. 1, while the Redettes’ Mollie Kilpela zipped by Jillian Skewis 6-3, 6-0 at No. 2.

Negaunee gets back in action at Kingsford on Monday afternoon, while Marquette is off until Wednesday afternoon when it hosts Munising.

Information compiled by Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.