Greenhills Extends D4 Dynasty
October 19, 2013
By Greg Tunnicliff
Special to Second Half
GRAND BLANC – Growing up in a family known for basketball, Teddy Oosterbaan decided to break from tradition and become a server – of tennis balls.
The Kalamazoo Hackett freshman is the son of J.P. Oosterbaan, who was a three-year letterwinner at the University of Michigan from 1987-89, helping the Wolverines win the 1989 NCAA championship. Teddy also is the grandson of John Oosterbaan, a two-year letterwinner at Michigan from 1962-63.
“I just try to do the best that I can,” Teddy Oosterbaan said. “(Tennis) is exciting and our team making states was cool.”
While the youngest Oosterbaan isn’t sure if he will suit up for Hackett on the hardcourt, he already has left his mark on the tennis courts.
Saturday, he was rarely challenged en route to posting a 6-0, 6-0 victory over Cal Willa of Grand Rapids West Catholic in the Lower Peninsula Division 4 No. 2 singles championship match at Genesys Athletic Club in Grand Blanc.
“I was in a pretty good rhythm the whole year,” said the 6-foot-4 Oosterbaan, who ended 24-1. “I felt I was getting better the whole season.”
Top-ranked Ann Arbor Greenhills continued its dominance in the team competition, capturing five of the eight fights en route to earning its sixth straight team championship and seventh in the last eight seasons.
The Gryphons finished with 33 points in the 24-team field, nine more than runner-up West Catholic (24).
“It’s a new group of guys each year; it’s a new challenge each year,” Greenhills coach Eric Gajar said. “They were well prepared. All the stuff we asked them to do, they brought together this weekend. They delivered at crunch time.”
At No. 1 singles, Lansing Catholic junior Matt Heeder overcame a slow start to post a 6-4, 6-3 victory over West Catholic’s Nicholas Solarewicz in the championship match.
Heeder fell behind 3-0 in the opening set before winning six of the next seven games. He was never seriously threatened after that en route to capturing his first Finals championship.
“After getting down 3-0, I started staying down on the ball,” Heeder said. “I was a little nervous the first couple of games, but coach settled me down and I got into a groove. I tried not to over think. I just did what I was capable of doing.”
Pacing Greenhills was its No. 4 singles player, sophomore Gage Feldeisen, who captured his second championship and first at singles. Feldeisen, who was seeded second, won all four of his matches in straight sets, including a 6-3, 6-2 triumph over top-seeded A.J. Samdal of Grand Rapids South Christian in the final.
“Being the No. 2 seed, you don’t have any pressure to win,” said Feldeisen, who won at No. 4 doubles last year. “You can go out and just play the best you can. I hit my forehand a lot, tried to stay consistent.”
Greenhills captured all four double flights, led by its No. 1 team of senior Adhi Rajaprabhakaran and freshman Sam Talsma. The second-seeded tandem upset top-seeded Alex Lemire and Mike Nowicki of West Catholic, 6-1, 7-5, in the championship match.
“We were expecting a lot from ourselves from the beginning,” Talsma said. “We knew we had what it took to win the title. We never thought about anything else during the match.”
It is the third doubles championship for Rajaprabhakaran, who won at No. 3 in 2011 and No. 2 last year.
“It’s all I could ask for,” Rajaprabhakaran said. “I never lost in Division 4, and I wanted to keep that streak going. Along with our team winning, which is more important, I couldn’t be happier.”
Greenhills’ No. 2 doubles team of senior Neil Sykes and junior Isak Akervall needed back-to-back three-set victories to capture their flight Saturday. The twosome posted a 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) come-from-behind triumph over Alan Jurcak and August Bonacci of Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett in the final.
“I never expected to get here the first year, upset the No. 1 seed,” Akervall said. “We had to stay strong the whole time. I’m just ecstatic.”
It is Sykes third Finals title, having won at No. 4 doubles the previous two seasons.
“I’m shaking right now,” Sykes said. “It took a lot of work in the offseason and during the season, trying to keep up with the competition. (Winning a third straight championship) is a good way to go out.”
The Gryphons’ freshman No. 3 doubles tandem of Andy Xie and Matt Chatas entered the tournament as the top seed and showed the field why, winning all four of their matches in straight sets.
“We just had to stay loose and not get down if we lost a game,” Xie said. “After a couple of games, we just got into our zone.”
The duo rolled through their first three matches, yielding no more than four games in a set. In the championship match, they held off second-seeded Jack Ninivaggi and Alex Dow of Liggett, 7-6 (7-4), 6-2.
“For the first day, we just had to get through,” Chatas said. “The second day, we had to play hard and make sure not to give (opponents) anything.”
Junior David Groden and sophomore Brandon Johnson joined Greenhills’ team this fall, and they got their careers off to fast start by winning the No. 4 doubles championship.
“I still can’t believe it,” Johnson said. “I’m so happy, it’s unreal.”
The twosome, which was seeded No. 2, upset top-seeded Jackson Benning and Davey Sekhon of Liggett, 4-6, 7-5, 6-4, in the championship match.
“We realized we were playing for the title,” Groden said of his and Johnson’s performance in the third set. “We wanted it, and we did it.”
Rounding out the individual winners was Hackett freshman Henry Hedeman, who won at No. 3 singles. Hedeman, who was seeded No. 1, captured all four his matches in straight sets, yielding no more than one game in a set.
He beat third-seeded Nick Link of West Catholic, 6-1, 6-1, in the championship match.
“It was pretty nerve-racking; you don’t want to have a big upset happen,” Hedeman said. “I had to play smart. I had to focus on the tournament.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Ann Arbor Greenhills poses with its latest MHSAA championship trophy. (Middle) Greenhills players huddle after repeating as Lower Peninsula Division 4 champions. (Photos courtesy of Greenhills tennis.)
4-Time Title Winner Headlines #1 Finals
October 21, 2020
By Keith Dunlap
Special for Second Half
When he got to the court at Portland High School, Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett senior William Cooksey discovered a realization: He was about to end his storied high school career at the same place he began it.
“His very first match was at Portland High School, and his last match was played at Portland High School,” Liggett head coach Mark Sobieralski said. “Isn’t that crazy?”
Even crazier was the high school career Cooksey ended up producing, as he made it four MHSAA Finals championships at No. 1 singles following a 6-0, 6-3 win over Andrew Solarewicz of Grand Rapids West Catholic in the Lower Peninsula Division 4 Final.
Cooksey became the first Lower Peninsula athlete to win four MHSAA Finals boys No. 1 singles titles since Hamtramck’s Francisco Castillo did so from 1957-60. Only five athletes total, both peninsulas combined, have won four championships at the top flight.
Ranked No. 8 in the nation for his age group, the 17-year-old Cooksey will play collegiately at University of Michigan.
“I was going in there expecting a physical match,” Cooksey said of Wednesday’s final. “I started off playing really clean and hitting big. He wasn’t used to that ball. Towards the middle of the second set, he kind of caught on to it. I kind of adjusted from there and put more balls in play.”
Earlier in the day, Cooksey beat both Malachi Yaffey of Grand Rapids NorthPointe Christian and Andrew Frost of Grand Rapids Catholic Central by identical 6-0, 6-0 scores.
In an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the MHSAA Boys Tennis Tournament this fall was adjusted from its usual flighted bracket format to a head-to-head team event. Liggett won the LP Division 4 team title Friday, and Wednesday the top eight No. 1 singles players in each division faced off for individual championships.
Division 1
Okemos senior Josh Portnoy might not have been the top seed going into his Division 1 individual championship match against Gabe Brown of Troy Athens, but he did have two other things going for him.
One was that he had homecourt advantage with the Final taking place at Okemos.
“I really felt like it was an advantage,” said Portnoy, the No. 2 seed. “Having friends and teammates there cheering for me and practicing there gave me an advantage.”
The other edge was having some knowledge of Brown, who beat Portnoy earlier this season.
“Just play free and just play my game,” Portnoy said of his big adjustment for the rematch. “Definitely play more aggressive and be on the offense more.”
Portnoy certainly did that, earning a surprisingly dominant 6-1, 6-1 win over Brown to capture the championship.
It turned out to be a double title for Portnoy after Okemos won the Division 1 team title five days earlier.
Portnoy started off the day with a 6-0, 6-0 win over Angie Zhou of Ann Arbor Pioneer before beating Noah Roslin in their semifinal, 6-4, 6-4.
Brown beat Anthony Van Oyen of Ann Arbor Skyline 6-4, 6-0 and Matthew Freeman of Northville in the semifinals 6-2, 6-2.
Division 2
Mattawan senior Nathaniel Webster said he had never experienced pain like that before on a tennis court.
While up 2-1 in the second set of his championship match at Lansing Waverly against Nick Herdoiza of Walled Lake Central, Webster said he started experiencing a “whole-body cramp.”
Webster won the first set 6-4, but the cramp was so severe that he said he was forced to serve underhand the rest of the match.
“My teammates were there cheering, and I got a lot of adrenaline going,” Webster said. “I don’t know what happened.”
What eventually happened was that Webster overcame the pain and grinded his way to a second-straight No. 1 singles title, beating Herdoiza in the second set 6-2.
Seeded No. 1, Webster beat Alex Wootton of Portage Northern in a quarterfinal, 6-3, 6-0, and Sammy Yin of Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central in a semifinal, 6-3, 6-1, to earn the opportunity to repeat.
Webster will play collegiately at Ball State.
“This was a lot sweeter,” he said, comparing to 2019. “I was cramping in my last match a lot, so it was more hard-fought than last year. Just to go out my senior year with all my friends, it felt great to go out like this.”
Division 3
Ann Arbor Greenhills junior Mert Oral repeated as No. 1 singles champion in this division in impressive fashion at Mason, beating Owen DeMuth of Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood in the final, 6-0, 6-1.
“It feels good to be able to back up what I did last year, for sure,” he said.
Oral lost just two games the entire day, beating Sreejay Ramakrishnan of Ada Forest Hills Eastern in a quarterfinal, 6-0, 6-0, and Simon Volkema of Grand Rapids Christian in a semifinal, 6-1, 6-0.
“My serve was pretty good,” Oral said. “I was really consistent. I was able to use my forehand from the baseline and was really happy with the way I was able to compete and battle throughout my matches.”
PHOTO: Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett senior William Cooksey volleys during Friday’s Lower Peninsula Division 4 team championship tournament at Portage Central.