It's Huron Again at Division 1 Tennis Final
October 20, 2012
By Fred Kelly
Special to Second Half
MIDLAND — For Ann Arbor Huron, some of the faces were new. But the end result was the same at Saturday’s MHSAA Division 1 Tennis Final.
The River Rats reached finals in six of eight flights and won three flight championships en route to compiling 33 points and claiming their second straight team championship at the Midland Community Tennis Center.
Birmingham Brother Rice, last year’s runner-up, and Novi tied for second with 27 points apiece. Both the Warriors and Wildcats finished Friday’s opening day of competition with 22 points, only two behind Huron.
“Brother Rice and Novi did a good job getting 22 points yesterday, so we knew they were right on our heels, and we still had a lot of work to do coming into today,” River Rats’ coach Stefan Welch said. “(Our players) came out and executed. I’m just really happy for them.
“... It means a lot, obviously,” Welch added of winning back-to-back titles. “It’s hard to do it once, let alone twice. For the seniors, it’s nice to send them out on top. I’m really pleasantly surprised by how we performed this year. We had eight seniors leave last year’s lineup, so a lot of new faces stepped right in and performed.”
Huron junior Colin Williams said he felt his team had something to prove heading into the tournament.
“At the beginning of the year, we had a big target on our back, being defending champions,” said Williams, who won the No. 3 singles championship Saturday. “And then we played a dual match with Novi, and they beat us 6-2. They were in the spotlight then, but we felt like we didn’t play our best tennis that day, and we felt we were better than them.
“Today, we proved it,” he added. “We came out, we beat them, and we’re state champs now.”
Troy and Northville tied for fourth with 17 points each, while Traverse City Central was sixth with 14 points.
One of the individual highlights of the day was second-seeded Ed Covalschi of Utica Eisenhower upsetting top-seeded Tyler Gardiner of Northville 6-2, 7-5 in a hard-fought No. 1 singles final.
“It was definitely tough. I was a little tired from my semifinal, but it’s great to pull it off,” said Covalschi, who had to rally to beat sixth-seeded Brett Forman of Troy in three sets in the semifinals.
“He’s a great player,” Covalschi added of University of Michigan-bound Gardiner. “It was a great win. ... I picked up my serve a ton, and my returns were pretty good. Staying in long points really helped me; being patient (was the key).”
Covalschi, a senior who is headed to Notre Dame, said capping off an undefeated season with a No. 1 singles title was memorable.
“It’s unbelievable. It’s great to celebrate with my team,” he said. “My family supported me, and our fans supported me. I really appreciate it.”
Northville’s third-seeded freshman Connor Johnston finished his first Finals with a 6-1, 6-2 upset of top-seeded Jack Hamaty of Brother Rice in the No. 2 singles title match after rallying from a one-set deficit to beat second-seeded Kevin Mei of Huron in the semis.
“I was just being really aggressive, and I kept going at it the whole time. I never stopped,” said Johnston, adding of winning the match, “... I was speechless when it happened. I just dropped my racquet and screamed. I didn’t know what to do, honestly.”
Williams, who was seeded second at No. 3 singles, notched a straight-set victory over Brother Rice’s Chase Peery in the semifinals, and then swept Novi’s top-seeded Koushik Kondapi 6-3, 6-3 in the final. It was Williams’s first individual championship after two years of finishing as a runner-up.
“It feels great. ... To finally get the individual title after two years of losing in the finals is great. It’s really special,” said Williams, a runner-up at No. 3 doubles last year and at No. 4 doubles as a freshman.
At No. 4 singles, Novi’s top-seeded Pavan Rao breezed past Troy’s fifth-seeded Tarun Kalyanaraman in the semifinals, then swept Huron’s second-seeded Jon Seyhun 6-2, 6-2 in the final.
At No. 1 doubles, Huron’s third-seeded Akihiro Ota/Aaron Bradkey rallied to beat second-seeded Andrew Cansfield/Connor Johnston of Port Huron Northern in a three-set semifinal, then swept top-seeded Jason Carless/Andrew Ying of Novi in the final. At No. 2 doubles, second-seeded Max Teener/Ryan Stark of Huron beat third-seeded George Hamaty/Connor Parks of Brother Rice in the semifinals, then defeated top-seeded Nishant Kakar/Michael Chang of Novi 6-4, 1-6, 6-3 in the final.
At No. 3 doubles, top-seeded Joey Hildebrand/Johnny Cameron of Brother Rice defeated fourth-seeded Max Knoblock/Nick Yergens of Traverse City Central in the semifinals, then rallied to beat second-seeded George Lu/Michael Bondin of Huron 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the final. And at No. 4 doubles, top-seeded David Weatherford/Brendan Dillon of Brother Rice ousted fifth-seeded Trey Pezzetti/Yani Beeker of Traverse City Central in the semifinals, then swept third-seeded Austin Luker/Will Brenner of Huron 6-3, 6-3 in the final.
Ota, a junior at Huron who claimed his first flight championship, said it was satisfying to defend the team title.
“We have a big tradition to hold up, so we just practice hard every day, and we come up big at the right moments,” he said.
Asked if an individual or team title is more rewarding, Ota replied without hesitation, “The team (title), definitely. ... It’s high school tennis. It’s all about the team.”
PHOTO: (Top) Ann Arbor Huron celebrates its MHSAA team championship Saturday at the Midland Community Tennis Center. (Middle) Utica Eisenhower's Ed Covalschi won the individual No. 1 singles championship and finished this fall undefeated. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
No Just-Miss This Time: Groves Breaks Through with 1st Finals Win
By
Greg Chrapek
Special for Second Half
October 16, 2021
HOLLAND – This year’s Lower Peninsula Division 2 Boys Tennis Finals had a new look.
Along with the return to their traditional format after last year’s COVID-driven changes, the tournament featured a new champion, several new competing schools and some brand new names to the Division 2 tennis scene.
Birmingham Groves, a five-time Finals runner-up, broke through and claimed the first boys tennis team title in school history. Groves finished the two-day tournament Saturday with 27 points to edge a familiar name, two-time reigning Division 2 champion Grand Rapids Forest Hills Northern, by one point. Last year’s Division 1 champion, Okemos, had moved into Division 2 this season and tied for third place with Midland Dow as both teams totaled 20 points.
For Groves and coach Dave Farmer, the title meant the end of a chase lasting a decade.
“I’ve been coaching here since 2010 and we’ve had several second and third-place finishes,” Farmer said. “This one is very special because it’s the first high school title I’ve ever won. I won three titles at Eastern Michigan University, but this is my first in 12 years of coaching high school tennis.
“We have a veteran team this year, and that is a big reason why we won it. We had great senior leadership and a lot of good juniors as well.”
Groves came into the tournament with nine seniors on the team and seven in the starting lineup. The Falcons were paced by their singles lineup but received big efforts from doubles down the stretch.
“We have a good group of singles players that carried us for the bulk of the year,” Farmer said. “Our doubles teams really picked it up in the tournament and really helped solidify the team.”
The Falcons also had a talented freshman in the singles lineup, and he made his high school Finals debut in a big way. Groves freshman Michael Liss won the No. 3 singles title as he defeated Will Seymour of Detroit U-D Jesuit 6-4, 6-3.
“It feels absolutely amazing,” Liss said. “I just tried to stay calm and not get upset at anything at all. I feel that as a team we were a cohesive unit, and we all pushed each other to get better. I’m just a freshman, but I know we’ve been really close to winning it as a team. We’ve finished second and third a lot so we really wanted to win it this year.”
Liss was not the only freshman to win an individual flight championship. Okemos freshman Suchir Nagisetty arrived on the Finals stage in a big way as well as he defeated Andrew Williams of Mattawan 7-5, 6-1, to clinch at No. 4 singles.
The win was especially meaningful for Nagisetty as he followed in the footsteps of his older brother Sid who won an individual flight title during his freshman season at Okemos in 2017. Sid was in attendance cheering and supporting his brother and has played his own role in Suchir’s development as a player.
“My brother coached me and trained me this summer,” Suchir said. “I wanted to follow in his footsteps and win a state title in my freshman year. It is something I’ve thought about for a long time. There is some pressure, but once you start playing the match your love of tennis takes over and you just concentrate on playing the game. Winning the title feels great, and it’s nice to have something in common I can share with my brother.”
A new name to Division 2 tennis but a familiar face on the state scene, Okemos sophomore Ethan Portnoy, came away with the No. 1 singles championship. Portnoy, who played doubles last season, moved up to No. 1 singles and defeated Connor Stafford of Grosse Pointe South 6-3, 6-4.
Like Nagisetty, Portnoy had a good example of what it takes to win an individual championship under his own roof as his older brother Josh Portnoy was a two-time Finals flight champion during his high school career at Okemos.
“It’s really cool to follow in my older brother’s footsteps,” Portnoy said. “I had a lot of confidence that I could do it. I played a lot of USTA (United States Tennis Association) tournaments in the summer and had a lot of tough matches, and I knew I could bring that experience to high school tennis.”
At No. 2 singles, senior Owen Goodrich of Forest Hills Northern wrapped up his career in a memorable way by outlasting Okemos senior George Fan in a grueling, three-set struggle 6-2, 3-6, 6-4.
“I just took it one point at a time,” Goodrich said. “I’ve played him before, and I knew it was going to be a tough match. I knew he’s a great player, but he’s not invincible.”
Winning his final match as a senior was a fitting way to go out for Goodrich, who lost in the final at No. 4 singles as a freshman.
“I lost in the state finals to a player from Okemos as a freshman,” Goodrich said. “Now I win my final match in the state finals against a player from Okemos. I couldn’t ask for a better way to finish my senior year. It’s amazing.”
In doubles competition, winners came from four schools.
Grosse Pointe South, in Division 2 for the first time after having played in Division 1 for years, finished in a tie for sixth place and was led by seniors Blake Discher and Alex Prather. Discher and Prather teamed up to stop Thomas Ladwein and Aaron Li of Midland Dow 6-4, 6-3, at No. 1 doubles.
“We played really good,” Prather said. “It was one of our best days ever. This is the second year that we’ve played as partners, and we do a great job of supporting each other.”
The duo was determined to bring home a title for South, and even though they believed they could win, there was an element of awe when it was over.
“I thought we could take it with how much we put into it,” Discher said, “but in the end we were kind of shocked that we actually did it.”
The Jesuit No. 4 doubles team of Sam Owens and Stephen Cibulas won a tough struggle against Andrew Weitzman and Gabe Klein of Groves 7-5, 7-6 (2). The win was made even harder considering the duo had just spent plenty of energy getting past a tough Forest Hills Northern team in the semifinal round.
“We had a real tough match with Forest Hills Northern, and it drained a lot of our energy,” Owens said. “We had to be more mentally tough in this match. They were up 4-1 in the second half so we had to come back to win it.”
“We just played with more energy,” Cibulas added. “It was all about the energy. We also support each other really well.”
At No. 2 doubles, the Forest Hills Northern duo of Aaryan Singh and Anderson Halland were pushed to the limit before claiming a 3-6, 6-1, 6-3, victory against Dylan Wolf and Alexandras Abarius of Groves.
Birmingham Seaholm, which tied for sixth with Grosse Pointe South, was paced by its No. 3 doubles team of Alex George and Alex Lewis. The Seaholm duo won the No. 3 doubles title by stopping Kyle Wang and Joey Lamberg of Forest Hills Northern 6-3, 6-3.
PHOTOS (Top) Birmingham Groves' Michael Liss returns a volley Saturday during his run to the No. 3 singles championship. (Middle) Okemos' Ethan Portnoy drives a shot during a No. 1 singles match. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)