New month, who dis?
(SWC Champions, from left to right: Coach Jon, Coach Dave, junior Adrian Norcio, junior freshman Jade Dynamic, senior Ben Blake, junior Jace Ackerman, freshman Colton Hulme, sophomore Michael Karibian, Coach Kirk, Coach Seth)
One of the craziest Southwestern Conference tournaments we've had concluded on Memorial Day Monday with the Tigers emerging triumphant after a three-day battle to take the SWC crown. The conference title is Edwardsville's 20th consecutive on the boys side.
Play started Thursday morning with EHS advancing to the finals of all three doubles flights. After about 40 minutes of action, the first of many rain bands descended upon the Metro East, and all matches were halted to resume Friday morning.
When Friday morning rolled around, players and coaches alike were excited to finish the doubles and play out the singles tournament, but once again Mother Nature had other plans, and after 20 minutes, the rain arrived again, this time with bonus lightning and thunder! After a coaches' conference, the decision was made to resume play Monday morning (with Saturday being the day of most schools' graduation), and so come Monday, for the third day, the conference teams once again trekked to scene O'Fallon Township High School (and that's not an insult, I love those courts' set-up in the pines and grass).
For those keeping track at home, this meant it was the THIRD day of play for the doubles finals, and the third time proved to be the charm in finishing them. The Tigers once again showed their doubles prowess, as all three doubles teams earned the no. 1 seed in their respective flights, and far more importantly, all three teams won their division. The doubles sweep put EHS up four points on Belleville East and five points on O'Fallon heading into singles. (For those at home, you get 7 points for winning a flight, 6 for 2nd place, etc., etc.)
At no. 1 doubles, Jade Dynamic and Michael Karibian defeated a strong East team 6-4, 6-4 for the title. At no. 3, Jace Ackerman and Adrian Norcio also took down an East team 6-2, 6-4. The morning's most dramatic action came at no. 2, where Ben Blake and Colton Hulme were up against O'Fallon in the finals. After Ben and Colton won the first set 6-3, the Panthers found their roar and quickly evened things up with a 1-6 set of their own to set up a 10-point tiebreaker for the match. The Tigers hopped out to an early lead, but O'Fallon closed the gap with some great play to move it to 6-5, Ben came up with two big serves to open the lead back up. It stayed there, and Colton closed the match out with a down the line forehand winner to give EHS the 6-3, 1-6, 10-6 victory.
There was still a lot of tennis left to go, however, as the tournament now moved into singles play. The Tigers advanced to the finals at the 3, 4, 5, and 6 flight (Michael, Jace, Adrian, Ben), but strong play from Belleville East saw the Lancers score upsets over Colton and Jade at the no. 1 and 2 semifinals to close the points gap in a hurry. Things got even closer when East won the 5 and 6 finals despite strong play from Adrian and Ben.
Helping to stem the tide, Colton and Jade easily won their third-place matches to secure valuable points for EHS. At no. 3 singles, Michael was locked in a tough battle, having fallen behind 2-5 in the first set. Digging deep, Michael fought back to force the set into a tiebreaker, where he came out on top 8-6. From there Mike doubled down and took the second set 6-2 to clinch a Tigers conference championship.
The last Tiger playing on the day was by no means the least: as the no. 2 seed in the 4 singles flight, Jace had to play a skilled Belleville East player in the semis, and his 6-2, 7-5 win was huge for the overall point standings. In the finals, he faced off against an O'Fallon player he had lost in three sets to a few weeks ago. Today, however, Jace would not be denied, and triumphed in a 6-3, 6-0 win that was a LOT closer than the scoreline indicates.
Overall, Edwardsville finished with conference titles in 1, 2, and 3 doubles, along with 3 and 4 singles for a total of 57 points. Belleville East was 2nd with 54, and O'Fallon third with 50. The tournament title caps an undefeated conference season for Edwardsville, who went 6-0 during regular season play. Our thanks go to Coaches Thomas and Mennerick at O'Fallon for running such a great tournament! As Coach Lipe said yesterday, this was a great win: only one player entering varsity this year had ever played a varsity match before (our lone senior Ben). Great job guys!
The boys are now officially in the postseason run, and will travel to Belleville West Friday and Saturday for the 2A Sectional. Colton and Ben will be entered in the singles draw, while the doubles pairings of Jade and Michael and Jace and Adrian will be in doubles. All four entries will look to place top four in their respective flight to qualify for state, and earn as many points possible toward the team standings.
For those wondering, "Hey, this is a really long high school recap, what gives?" the answer is that shockingly, we really didn't have anything else going on last week. Summer JTT starts this week, and ETA will be fielding teams in 12u Green Ball, 14u Silver, 14u Gold, 18u Gold, and 18u Gold Too. We're excited for a great summer together!
On that last note, if you are planning to register for Summer Academy or Summer Classes, please do so NOW!! If you clicked this link and are on the blog, you're in the right place! Just go to Summer Tennis in the header to register. Spots are filling up fast and some weeks are already at full capacity so sign up today!
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