Finding the right chemistry on the court for Columbus School for Girls tennis players Lauren Gerber and Tiffany Lau this postseason seemingly has been much easier than it might be to, say, build a robot together.

They should know, because they’ve participated in both of those endeavors.

After competing as a doubles team in two regular-season matches, Gerber and Lau teamed up for the postseason and earned a runner-up finish in the Division II sectional Oct. 6 and 8 at CSG.

Then in the district tournament on Oct. 14-15 at the same site, Gerber and Lau again finished second to ad-vance to the state tournament on Friday, Oct. 21, and Saturday, Oct. 22, at Ohio State.

Gerber, a senior, and Lau, a junior, competed together last winter on Team 677, also known as Murphy’s Outlaws, which is CSG’s robotics team. The robotics team was founded in 2000 and is one of few all-girls teams in the nation.

“We’ve been doing a lot of extracurricular things together,” Lau said. “I don’t know how, but we’ve just sort of clicked on the court. We’re on the robotics team together. Every year we have to build a robot to accomplish a task, and it’s a six-week season usually right after winter break. We even got a chance to go to St. Louis for the national championships. I got to know her through robotics and tennis.”

The last time CSG had representatives at state in tennis was 2007 when the doubles team of Hillary Landon and Tayler White lost in the first round and Ashley Staub lost in the second round in singles.

Gerber and Lau beat DeSales’ Izzy Ocampo and Chandler Starkey 6-3, 6-4 in its opening district match and defeated Columbus Academy’s Annie Lavin and Meghana Vallabhaneni 6-3, 7-6 in a semifinal.

They then lost to Bexley’s Becca Landon and Lindsey Staub 6-2, 6-2 in the championship match.

State brackets for Division II were expected to be announced Oct. 18.

“We were really happy that we beat (the) Academy (doubles team),” Gerber said. “This is the first year that Tiffany and I have played together, so it has felt good to go this far. We’ve been doing a lot of practicing against our other doubles team. We’re hoping to do pretty well.”

Also advancing to district but failing to make it to state were the doubles team of freshmen Mary Anne Click and Paige Quinton, junior singles player Jenny Henderson and freshman singles player Linda Yang.

Click and Quinton lost in a state-qualifying match and Henderson and Yang both fell in the first round.

“It’s been really life-changing (advancing to state),” Lau said. “Growing up I always liked playing tennis, but to get a chance to go to state means a lot.”

•The cross country teams came up short in its bid to win the CCL championship Oct. 15 at Otterbein University.

CSG tied Ready for first with 42 points, but the Silver Knights won on the sixth-runner tiebreaker to earn their second consecutive title.

Last season, Ready and the Unicorns each scored 49 points but the Silver Knights won the title on the same tiebreaker.

“We ran well and we competed,” coach Lori Baldwin said. “We’re great friends with Ready, but as coaches we know who we have to go after. These girls went after them (Oct. 15), and to tie them the way they did is phenomenal.”

Sophie Chatas was runner-up in the CCL meet in 20 minutes, 11.61 seconds, and Emma Harris was third (21:28.2). Also competing were Abigail Perrini (sixth, 22:00.83), Alexis Jones (15th, 22:53.93), Erin Balasky (16th, 23:13.94), Julia Mackessay (29th, 24:49.58) and Margaret Keene (35th, 25:37.53).

The Unicorns will run in the Division II, district 2 meet Saturday, Oct. 22, at Watkins Memorial.

The top four teams and top 16 individuals advance to the regional Oct. 29 at Pickerington North.