By CONOR NICHOLL

cnicholl@dailynews.net

Last week, the Phillipsburg High School girls' tennis team simply wanted to qualify players to state. The Panthers did that. For Norton senior Tawni Griffey, qualifying for state was a relatively simple task.

Griffey's main goal comes today and Saturday at the Class 3-2-1A tennis championships at the Hutchinson Community Tennis Complex. Griffey won the state championship as a sophomore after she moved from Wichita. A longtime player on United States Tennis Association squads, Griffey took second last year. This season, she has a 31-0 record and won the Russell regional last week.

Osborne junior Taylor Noel qualified sixth at 22-3. On the doubles' side, Phillipsburg seniors Brooke Boyington and Kaitlyn Vogel qualified fifth at 19-3. It marks the first trip to state for both players. Boyington is in her first season of playing tennis.

"They work well together," Panther coach Linda Jarvis said.

Last year, Griffey won her semifinals match 6-2, 6-0 but then lost to Prairie Village-Kansas City Christian's Sara Goodwin 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-5) in the championship match. As a sophomore, Griffey went 31-0 and rarely was challenged. She won 6-2, 7-5 in the semifinals and 6-1, 6-4 in the championship.

Philipsburg has qualified a player or a doubles team to state consistently through Jarvis' 25 years with the program.

The last four seasons, the Panthers have scored 0.5, three, one and three points at state.