Highland boys tennis takes 4th place in 2-day MVC Tournament
After a solid first day of play, the Highland boys tennis team was right where they wanted to be at the Mississippi Valley Conference Tournament.
However, at the end of the second day, the Bulldogs didn’t quite have enough for a top-three finish.
Despite a solid two days overall, HHS posted 17 points to finish fourth, seven points behind third place Mascoutah at the league event Saturday, May 14, at Triad High School.
HHS coach Matt Pellock said he felt his club ended up about where expected given the strong competition at the top of the conference field. Triad ultimately won the match with 54 points and Jerseyville took second place with 37 points.
“That’s where we fell during the season (fourth place) and I thought possibly we could challenge Mascoutah for third. We were one point behind them after the doubles (on Friday) and then in the singles (on Saturday) we had a couple of first round defeats that kept us from reaching more of the Mascoutah match-ups,” Pellock said.
The tournament began Friday, May 13, with all the doubles flights being played at Highland High School. The Bulldogs defeated Waterloo in all doubles matches in the first round as Alex Roach and Isaac Pasley won at No. 1 doubles, Tyler Kutz and Ben Mitchell won their No. 2 doubles match, and Will Lindsco and Bryant Smith won at No. 3 doubles.
“We got wins in all three of those matches, so that was good (to see),” Pellock said. “Lindsco and Smith earned medalist honors as a result of their third-place finish at No. 3 doubles. That was good finish for them.”
Kutz and Mitchell finished fourth at No. 2 doubles and Roach and Pasley also finished fourth in their No. 1 doubles flight.
On Saturday, May 14, the action moved to Triad for singles play. Kutz went 1-1 in his matches at No. 1 singles with a win over Civic Memorial, a loss to Mascoutah and loss to Jerseyville.
“At the end of the day, it’s getting pretty hot and everybody’s pretty worn (out) at that point — especially playing tough competition at No. 1 singles,” Pellock said. “That’s a long day.”
The Bulldogs went winless in the first round at No. 2 , No. 3, No. 4, and No. 5 singles.
“We had close losses (in those matches),” Pellock said.
Opportunities missed
HHS finished fifth overall in singles which put them just behind Waterloo for fifth, but the two-day tally for doubles and singles allowed the Bulldogs to finish a point ahead of Waterloo in fourth place. Waterloo ended up fifth overall with 16 points.
Pellock said he felt HHS could have finished a bit higher in the final standings with a slightly stronger showing in the single flights.
“I definitely think there were opportunities (missed) in the singles and with CM (Civic Memorial) fielding only two players, that only left one match for some of those guys,” Pellock said. “So, it was kind of disappointing that a close loss was all they got for the day.”
Lindsco emerged as the top singles performer for HHS, finishing second at No. 6 singles.
Kutz captures impressive award
Kutz was awarded the Sam Graf Sportsmanship Award, which is given to an outstanding senior in the conference each season.
“That was a really special moment for Tyler,” Pellock said. “Tyler had been on the (Mascoutah) team when Sam Graf was coaching Mascoutah during Tyler’s freshman year, so he’s familiar with Sam and we decided to set (up) that award for our conference. Sam had been such a fixture in our conference for lots of years and he had just retired and unfortunately passed shortly after he retired.”
Graf, the long-time boys tennis coach at Mascoutah, passed away at age 62 in 2019.
State qualifiers
At sectionals, Kutz qualified for state in singles while Roach and Pasley qualified as a doubles team.
The state tournament will take place Thursday, May 26, through Saturday, May 28, at Arlington Heights (Hersey) High School and surrounding area courts in the Chicago suburbs.
This story was originally published May 15, 2022 at 9:39 AM.