LIMA — Due to the weather it took an extra day to complete the Western Buckeye League boy tennis tournament. But Van Wert did not mind the delay after taking home its first league title in 47 years.
The Cougars, who had not won a boys tennis title since 1969, celebrated their league crown after staving off perennial front-runner and eight-time defending champions Shawnee and upstart Wapakoneta and Ottawa-Glandorf teams Monday in the finals of league tournment held indoors at The Westwood Tennis and Fitness center .
Combining its overall regular- season points and tournament points, Van Wert finished in first with 19.5 points. Wapakoneta was second with 17 points and Shawnee took third with 16.5 points. Ottawa-Glandorf (15) grabbed fourth place with St. Marys (12) rounding out the top five.
“It’s been a while,” said Cougars head coach Mitch Price. “I can’t be more proud of these guys. We are real happy. You can’t not be happy about this. We are going to celebrate this and the kids are thrilled about it.”
Price said the team was on a mission this year to garner the elusive title after stumbling in last year’s WBL tournament and added that it took a total team effort to secure the victory.
Van Wert’s Nick Etter finished first in second singles after defeating Shawnee’s Jake Liddle, 6-3-, 6-2 and teammates No. 1 first singles player Brandon Amstutz and third singles player Ryan Keber each had third-place showings. The first doubles pair of Davis Munroe and Gabe Rollins notched a first-place victory after downing Shawnee’s duo of Danny Kesner and Max Jones. The No. 2 doubles duo of Michael Etter and Spencer Teman placed second overall.
“Everything kind of went our way this year,” Price said. “We knew were close but came up a little bit short last year in tournament and I think we kind of made it our mission that if we got back here and were close we were going to finish it off and that is what we did. We knew we had the best overall team in the tournament.”“
Wapakoneta’s Emerson Hager was crowned first singles champion after defeating Ottawa-Glandorf’s Jordan Verhoff, 6-3, 6-3, in the finals. Ottawa-Glandorf’s Jeff Kaufman downed Keber in the finals, 7-6 (10-8) 6-4 to the second singles crown. Isaac Hanover of Shawnee defeated Ottawa-Glandorf’s Jeff Kaufman 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, to win the third singles crown. Celina’s second doubles team of Kyle Lochtefeld and Bryce Langenkamp were crowned champions after beating the Van Wert doubles team of Etter and Teman.
Shawnee, who had held a stranglehold on the WBL crown since 2008, fought its way into contention despite coming into the tournament in third place and still nursing some key injuries. But it came up short and had to settle for third, finishing just half a point behind the Redskins. The Indians did manage to place in two of the finals but overall did not have the necessary numbers to overcome the Cougars’ lead.
“Our guys rallied and did the best they could,” Shawnee head coach Steven Jones said. “We had a little disappoinment at first singles when he had to forfeit which basically a finals position potentially and he couldn’t play for third either which dropped us to fourth place because of that.”
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