Highland High School boys tennis team sends three to state, advance into second round

The 2022 postseason started with promise with the Highland Bulldogs boys tennis team.

And, all things considered, it was a productive one for HHS.

“I think, certainly, the match-ups that we got (in the postseason), we won the ones we were capable of (winning) and almost pulled out an upset at singles (at state), so it was a pretty good run for us,” Highland coach Matt Pellock said.

Highland’s state road started with a strong showing at the IHSA Class 1A sectional tournament at Triad from May 20-23. Highland finished third in the sectional behind host Triad and Alton Marquette with 14 points.

Senior Tyler Kutz qualified for state with a second-place singles finish and fellow seniors Alex Roach and Isaac Pasley paired and made the cut for state with a fourth-place finish in doubles to lead the Bulldogs.

“Getting both singles and doubles teams through (to state) helped us with the points,” Pellock said. “We had some tough first-round matches with other guys because they both had to play top seeds in their first match, so we didn’t get points for our other entries because of some tough (early) draws.”

The weather was also a challenge for the Bulldogs as Kutz had to wait until May 23 to play in his final match against Triad due to wet weather in the area two days prior.

After sectional qualifying, Kutz, Roach, and Pasley marched on to the state tournament May 26-28 in Vernon Hills.

On May 26, in singles, Kutz lost his first-round match to Wyatt Jurgensmeyer of Mascoutah 6-0, 6-2.

“We played indoors (due to the weather) and that was kind of a new experience, but they enjoyed it,” Pellock said. “The Mascoutah kid only had a half dozen more points than Tyler in the first set but almost every game was a deuce game. And since they were playing adds (points) since it was indoors to get through the first rounds, he just couldn’t come up with the deuce points in that first set.”

Roach and Pasley had the tough luck of drawing the top-seed of Chicago Latin’s Will Benford and Sam Cutinho in their first-round match and lost 6-0, 6-0.

“Isaac and Alex played the eventual state champion in doubles in the first round, but they hadn’t seen that kind of doubles play before, so they enjoyed getting to play that kind of level of tennis,” Pellock said.

Then, on May 27, Kutz rebounded in the consolation bracket first round with an 8-7 win over Jason Burg of Woodcock North in an eight-game pro set match.

“Tyler was down 3-6 and came all the way back to win a tiebreaker,” Pellock said. “He really wanted to get that win.”

Kutz had his state tournament appearance halted in the second round of the consolation bracket, dropping a hard-fought 9-7 match to Urbana-University standout Aryan Sachdev.

Roach and Pasley started their consolation round in doubles with a strong 8-1 victory over David Helsel and Matthew Jenkins of Chicago Heights-Marian.

More from state tournament

In the second round, Roach and Pasley were stopped by Hayden King and Abhi Kumar of Bloomington, who handed them an 8-3 loss to end their time at state.

Getting in three matches each for Kutz in singles and for Roach and Pasley in doubles left Pellock and HHS feeling good about what their two entries accomplished at state.

“Going up there and hoping to get a win ... you never know where you’re going to be seeded in the draw in that kind of tournament,” Pellock. “Then, too, with the weather challenges, we were thankful we were able to get everybody in all their rounds, so it was a success.”

‘I think we’ll be alright’

Looking toward next spring, Pellock will lose Kutz, Roach, Pasley, and Benny Mitchell to graduation but believes his returning young players will be competitive and ready to excel.

“Potentially, I think we’ll be alright,” Pellock said. “We’ll be young as we’re losing four out of our to five guys, which is never an easy thing. But the guys we have coming back will do just fine.”

This story was originally published June 12, 2022 at 12:00 AM.