EDWARDSVILLE – The name of Heather Bradshaw means much to Edwardsville High School’s tennis program.

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Bradshaw was an assistant coach for Edwardsville’s program after her graduation from Robinson High School, where she was an All-Apollo Conference player, and from Eastern Illinois before she came to Edwardsville as a speech pathologist at EHS and as an assistant tennis coach from 2003-05.

Sadly, Bradshaw was killed in an auto accident while on vacation in Florida in 2005. Her memory lives on in the EHS tennis program in many ways, especially in the annual Heather Bradshaw Tournament, which got under way Friday morning in Edwardsville and other venues throughout the area.

“It’s always a bittersweet memorial,” said Tiger coach Dave Lipe. “We’re glad to remember her, but we’re sad that she’s gone; she was 31 years old. There’s that, there’s the personal aspect of this and the other side of this as a tennis event coordinator. There’s 41 teams (in three flights) and about 15 sites from as far north as Alton and as far south as Mascoutah and multiple Madison County and St. Clair County sites involved, so we’re very appreciative of all the sites and all the help that we get to coordinate this.

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“It’s a major undertaking; we get a lot of help from other coaches.”

In the main Champions Flight Friday, the Tigers moved into this morning’s semifinals with a 9-0 win over Hinsdale South and then a 5-0 win over Chatham Glenwood; they’ll take on New Trier 1 in the semis, which was scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. today; St. Joseph’s Academy of St. Louis will meet New Trier 2 in the other semi, with the winners meeting later Saturday for the flight’s championship.

In the Challengers Flight of the tournament, Edwardsville’s No. 2 team also got to the final four with a 5-4 win over Carbondale and a win over Dunlap in the quarterfinal; they were scheduled to meet Teutopolis at 8:30 a.m. today at Liberty Middle School, with the winner taking on St. Joe’s No. 2 team or Flora’s No. 1 team in the final later Saturday. Triad won their opening-round match over Danville 6-3 before falling to Flora 5-4 in the quarterfinal; the Knights were scheduled to take on Belleville West at Triad in a fifth-place semifinal match Saturday morning.

In the round-robin Futures Flight, Alton’s JV defeated Effingham 9-0 Friday morning and downed Notre Dame of St. Louis 8-1 in their group, while Triad’s No. 2 team lost to Mascoutah 7-2 but defeated Mount Carmel by the same score in their group. Another group saw Metro East Lutheran blank Peoria Richwoods 9-0 but fall to Waterloo 8-1; Roxana, in another group, dropped a 5-4 decision to Highland, but were scheduled to take on Flora Friday afternoon. The score was not available.

Saturday’s playoffs were scheduled to see the Alton JV meet Triad in a fifth-place semifinal while MEL was to meet Flora in the other semifinal while Roxana was slated to take on Peoria Richwoods in a ninth-place semifinal match Saturday. Alton was set to meet Triad at home while MEL was to meet Flora at Edwardsville Township Park’s courts across from the MEL campus. Roxana was slated to host Richwoods in their contest.

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