LIMA — The Shawnee boy’s tennis team has been crowned Western Buckeye League champions or co-champions since 2008 but that streak is in jeopardy this year.
Coming into the league tournament Friday at the tennis courts of the University of Northwestern Ohio, the Indians were tied for third place with Ottawa-Glandorf in league regular season play with Wapakoneta and Van Wert tied for first place. With the rather unusual scoring system the league implements the Redskins and Cougars have 9.5 points and the Indians and Titans have 7.5 points, respectively.
While that might not seem like a huge number to overcome, Indians head coach Steve Jones his team will need some great tennis from his players and a couple of upsets if the Indians are going to retain the WBL title.
“We want to make a statement in the tournament if we can,” Jones said. “We had a tough season with injuries. We lost our number two at the beginning of the season and then he came back for two matches and then our number one went out.”
Jones, who described his team as a darkhorse this year, added that he had to move players up to accommodate for the injured players and while it hampered the team’s efforts it also gave these players some valuable experience against tougher competition. He said all the players are back and they are relatively healthy.
Despite his team back to full capacity, Jones said he knows Wapakoneta and Van Wert are ready to dethrone the Indians as champions. Wapakoneta has not won a WBL title since 1975 and Van Wert has not been crowned league champion since 1969.
Early tournament play has Van Wert and Wapakoneta picking up significant wins but Shawnee also saw a number of its players also advance with some huge performances of their own as all singles and doubles play today will begin with the semifinals. And don’t count Ottawa-Glandorf out either.
In No. 1 singles, Wapakoneta’s Emerson Hager, the No. 1 seed, advanced and will face off against Brandon Amstutz, the No. 5 seed from Van Wert in a key battle. In the same bracket, Ottawa-Glandorf’s Jordan Verhoff, the No. 2, seed will play Michael Rutter, the No.3 seed.
Another key battle is in the second singles bracket pits Alex Stinebaugh, the No. 4 seed, from Wapakoneta, against Nick Etter, the No. 1 seed from Van Wert. Shawnee’s Jake Liddle, the No. 3 seed, faces St. Marys’ Riley Niekamp, ranked No. 2.
Ottawa-Glandorf’s Jeff Kaufman will square off against No. 5 seed Ryan Keber of Van Wert in the third singles bracket. Redskin Jian Feng Zhao, the No. 2 seed, battles Isaac Hanover, the No. 3 seed from Shawnee.
In first doubles action, the St. Marys pair of Jacob Grannan and Josh Wingett pulled off a slight upset to advance and will take on the No. 1 seed team of Davis Munroe and Gabe Rollins of Van Wert. Shawnee’s Danny Kesner and Max Jones, the No. 3 seed will square off against the Wapakoneta pair of Riley Werling and Bryce Schlenker.
The Shawnee pair of Harsha Batulla and Jackson Schaff, the No. 3 seed, will take on Shawnee’s duo of Michael Etter and Spencer Teman. The Indians doubles team advanced after a hard-fought battle against Wapakoneta’s pair of Ben Schroer and Andrew Gibson. The match was tinged with a little controversy after one of the teams asked for a line judge to monitor the match after several contested out calls. In the other bracket, the Celina tandem of Kyle Lochtefeld and Bryce Langenkamp will face the No. 1 seeded duo of Zach Balbaugh and Nick Weihrauch from Ottawa-Glandorf.
With some highly contested matches expected to happen today, Wapakoneta head coach Jason Johnson said his team is poised and confident to battle for the league title. He said the road to the success began during the offseason and the results are showing.
“We had a great season and the boys have been working a lot,” he said. “Over the winter we started some conditioning and once the weather broke, we hit the courts and once practice time started we hit the courts.”
Johnson said it has been a long drought since the Redskins have captured the overall title but he is impressed with how the team has handled the pressure and added there is a lot of tennis still to go.
Many of these top matches will dictate much of the points totals, the consolation bracket will also have an impact as every point will be crucial in this highly contested race for the title. Action begins at noon today.
