Okemos, Genschaw Earn D2 Celebrations
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
October 21, 2017
KALAMAZOO — Okemos went home with the team trophy Saturday, but no one celebrated an individual medal with more exuberance than Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central senior Connor Genschaw at No. 1 singles.
The Chiefs won their first Lower Peninsula Division 2 title in 10 years before the finals even started at Kalamazoo College.
No. 3 doubles clinched the championship in the semifinals when top seeds Deniz Kalfa and Druv Talluri defeated Midland Dow’s fifth seeds, Ryan Killmaster and Kevin Kraef, 6-3, 6-0, to seal the win.
Kalfa and Talluri were two of six Chiefs who ended the season without losing a match.
“I don’t take a lot of credit for that (state title),” Okemos coach Chris Silker said. “These kids have worked really, really hard.
“We have an incredibly vested community that is behind the kids 110 percent. I think that’s the key to our success.”
Okemos dominated with 36 points. Birmingham Groves and Midland Dow tied for second with 21 each and Forest Hills Central was fourth with 20. Birmingham Seaholm (18) rounded out the top five.
Genschaw, the second seed, was bolstered by the roar of the crowd cheering on every winner and carrying him to a 6-0, 4-6, 6-1 win over top seed Gabe Liss of Birmingham Groves in the final.
Genschaw was swamped by teammates on the court after the match.
“It’s a culmination of all four years going into this match,” Genschaw said. “I had to cap it off with this one. It means so much to me emotionally.
“Now I’m not going into my life saying, ‘Oh, I lost in the finals in my senior year.’ Now I can say I got a state championship my senior year, and it’s awesome.”
Genschaw breezed through the first set but by the second, “I think I exhausted myself playing so well in the first set. I was honestly on fire in the first set, and I got really tired in the second set.
“Then the last set, I was like, this is my senior year. I’ve got to push as hard as I could. I ended up winning the last set, 6-1. It was all mental at that point.”
“Expecting it would be more than I would say coming in, but I sure hoped he could do it,” Central coach Dan Bolhouse added. “He played well throughout the tournament.
“He plays a lot of tournaments out of season so he was mentally prepared to play some tough opponents.”
Liss said he knew the match would be a challenge.
“He’s a senior, and he was thriving in the atmosphere,” the Groves junior said. “He had the crowd firing him up. It was his last year, and he was playing the best he could.”
After dropping the first set at love, “I just tried taking it one game at a time,” Liss added. “I knew the score was 6-0, but the games were closer and I was still in the match and (I knew) that I could keep fighting back for every point.”
No. 2 and 3 singles also featured Groves players with second seed Gabe Vidinas defeating top seed Josh Portnoy of Okemos, 6-1, 7-5, at No. 2 and Jonah Liss losing to top seed Shrey Patel of Okemos, 6-2, 6-4.
Portnoy and Patel are both freshmen.
“Shrey and Josh have been a big part of our success,” Silker said. “They both went undefeated this season until Josh’s final loss today against Gabe Vidinas.
“Even though (Portnoy) had a win over him during the season, Gabe played much better today and I think a little bit of that was his veteran experience.”
Vidinas’ match featured such long points that his two-setter took as long as the first flight’s three.
After streaking to a 4-0 lead to start the match, Vidinas won 6-1 but then had to fight for the second set.
“I played him twice before and he grinds; he’s very tough to play,” Vidinas said of Portnoy. “Every time I always have to be playing my best to beat him. It was a tough match.
“I could tell he wasn’t playing his best in the first set. I did my best to play my game.”
Vidinas, a junior, called for a trainer at 6-5 of the second set.
“I was cramping quite a bit,” he said. “Luckily I aced him to get to the changeover. I just held it in and toughed it out (to win).”
With teammates playing next to him, “The energy of my teammates makes me play better and I can be shouting and hollering all the time and my teammates can support me,” Vidinas said. “It’s always nice.”
Portnoy a freshman, said he knew what happened in the first set and tried to change it for the second.
“I was playing too offensive,” he said. “I kept missing deep. I think I should have played safer.”
By the second set, “I just decided his forehand is really strong,” Liss said. “His backhand wasn’t as good, but it was still pretty good.
“I’m like, I’ll just keep it to his backhand and he won’t be able to attack as much. It worked.”
The Patel match featured two freshmen in the third-flight final.
“I had to stay calm, be confident and move (Jonah Liss) around,” Patel said. “He played a lot better in the second set.”
Liss said playing on one of the front courts was “cool.”
“I’ve watched a few (USTA) national tournaments here,” he said. “It felt really cool. I’ve seen a lot of great players play here.”
Portage Central senior Vishu Ghantasala, the second seed at No. 4 singles, expected a tough opponent and he got it, losing to Okemos top-seeded junior Daniel Gorelik, 6-0, 6-1.
Ghantasala got a look at Gorelik during the semis.
“I saw Daniel playing next to me and he was done a good hour, hour and a half before me, so I knew it was going to be really tough when I had to play just a half hour after I was done,” Ghantasala said.
“A couple of my teammates have played him and they gave me some tips, but in the end it was really hard.”
Although his team already had the team trophy, Gorelik, who lost just three games the entire tournament, said that did not affect his play.
“The mindset was still just go out there and do your job, not let up,” he said. “You’ve got to get to the ultimate goal.”
Gorelik, who finished the season undefeated, said his teammates pushed each other all year.
“We have a lot of talent on the team this year and it makes it much better when you have a lot of good people to hit with,” he said.
Okemos’ No. 3 doubles team featured a senior (Kalfa) and a freshman (Talluri) who went undefeated all season.
Playing in his first state tournament, “It feels crazy,” Talluri said. “It’s just a crazy time. Everything just happened so fast. It was so much fun with the team.”
Kalfa felt a bit of pressure.
“This match was a lot different than any other match I’ve played knowing it’s my last high school match,” he said.
Partnering all season, “Mentally we became more than friends, more than partners, like brothers almost,” Kalfa said of Talluri.
“We always brought each other up, even today when we were both down mentally, the other one was trying their best to bring us up. He’s the best partner I could ask for.”
The duo defeated Seaholm’s second seeds, Aidan O’Neill and Max Levitsky, 7-5, 5-7, 6-0, in the final.
Okemos swept the doubles flights.
Other winners were second seeds Dinakar Talluri and Zal Chinoy at No. 1, top seeds Rohan Shah and Siddharth Agisetty, who did not lose a match all season, at No. 2; and second seeds Karthik Kolisetty and Aditya Kandula at No. 4.
PHOTOS: (Top) Okemos celebrates its Division 2 championship Saturday at Kalamazoo College. (Middle) Forest Hills Central's Connor Genschaw returns a volley during his No. 1 singles match. (Top photo by HighSchoolSportsScene.com; bottom photo by Pam Shebest.)
Rivals Share D1 Title, Baylis Ends on Top
October 19, 2019
By Perry A. Farrell
Special for Second Half
MIDLAND – Tom Pullen was just glad to be in the hunt.
The 28-year Ann Arbor Pioneer head coach, who is 75½ years old, had his team in a dead heat with rival Huron for the MHSAA Lower Peninsula Division 1 boys tennis title Saturday at the Midland Tennis Center. They were separated by one point, 21-20, going into semifinal play.
“I don’t care whether we win or lose,’’ Pullen said at that point. “This is a Cinderella group. We’re young. I’m losing three great net players, but it has been a long time since we’ve been in contention. This keeps me revitalized. We’ve had a great year. We knew Huron would be here. They’re a powerful team. We’ve beaten them a few times, and they’ve beaten us. We don’t really care about rankings. The kids have beaten teams ranked higher than them, so it doesn’t matter.
“No matter what, it has been a great year.’’
Two rounds later, the rivals finished in a tie and as co-champions. Pioneer won its last three matches to deadlock the score 27-27, capturing a share of the crown.
The key match late in the day was at No. 3 doubles with top-seeded Huron pair Sammy Clyde and Jacob Hejazi against Pioneer’s Drake Malcolm and Evan Roopas for the fourth time this year.
Clyde had been part of a doubles title last year and needed a win with Hejazi to clinch the team championship.
“We tied the first match because we couldn’t finish,’’ said Hejazi of the rivalry with Pioneer. “We won one and they won one, so this is the tie breaker. It’s easier because we know their weaknesses, but they also know ours.’’
Pioneer prevailed, 6-2, 5-7, 6-3 to pave the way for a possible team tie.
While No. 3 doubles was fighting it out, Isaac Herrenkohl also kept Pioneer’s hopes alive with a 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 victory over top seed Noah Fascewski of Clarkston in No. 3 singles.
Pioneer and Huron have not only battled in conference play, but on the big stage.
Bloomfield Hills won back-to-back titles in 2017 and 2018, but before that the River Rats won in 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2008.
Pullen, who started playing tennis when he was 35, and Pioneer won the fall and spring team title in 2007 along with championships in 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003 and 2002. Pioneer tied for first in 2001 with Birmingham Brother Rice.
Despite being out of the team picture, Clarkston had three players make it to a singles final at Nos. 1, 2 and 3.
At No. 1 singles, Clarkston’s Luke Baylis took advantage of a fatigued J.J. Etterbeek of Birmingham Rice to capture the crown, 6-2, 6-0. He joined his sister Lexi as a Finals champ, as she won No. 2 singles in 2011. Luke Baylis had made the No. 1 semifinals the last two seasons and finished No. 2 runner-up as a freshman.
“I tried to play my game and not focus on what was going on around me,’’ said Luke Baylis. “I could tell he was a little tired. I just worked the points really well and tried to stay in every point. This was my last match, so I tried to grind out every point.’’
Huron’s first flight title of the tournament came in No. 2 doubles as Nick Grosh and TJ Bai downed Pioneer’s Brendan Karsch and Aditya Abbaraju 6-1, 6-2.
“We’ve played them five times this year and five times last year,’’ said Bai, a junior. “We’ve been the top seed the last three years, and I think the past two years we choked. We got beat in the semis.
“This was important for my team. I thought we controlled the match from the start. Because the team title was at stake, the pressure was on.’’
Moments after their victory, Huron’s top-seeded No. 4 doubles team of Nikhil Gandikota and Vincent Tremonti finished defeating Northville’s Rachit Jain and Rohith Kesamneni, 6-3, 6-4.
“We beat them during the regular season, but during the state tournament anything can happen,’’ said Tremonti.
Said Gandikota: “They were hard, but both matches against Northville and (in the semifinal Detroit) CC were tough. The Catholic Central match went three sets and that was rough; we started out slow. Against Northville we upped our energy and maintained it.’’
Old friends battled it out in No. 2 singles with second-seed Frank Piana from Clarkston facing top seed Jan Nallani from Troy. Nallani made it two wins on the year against Piana with a 7-5, 6-1 victory.
“We’ve known each other since we were 10 years old,’’ said Piana, the No. 3 singles champ in 2018. “I’ve had just one loss this season, and it was to him. We’re good friends. It puts a different spin on the match.’’
Okemos’ No. 1 doubles team of Druv Talluri and Siddharth Nagisetty formed an experienced duo. Talluri and Nagisetty both won 2017 doubles titles in Division 2 with different teammates – Nagisetty with Rohan Shah at No. 2 and Talluri with Deniz Kalfa at No. 3. In 2018, Talluri won No. 2 with Shrey Patel and Nagisetty was runner-up at No. 3 with Aditya Kandula.
This time, Talluri and Nagisetty teamed up to form the top seed in the top flight and in the final defeated Huron’s Max Brodkey and Anvit Rao 6-1, 6-3.
“After my win freshman year in 2017, some of the players changed positions and I lost my then-partner to a singles position” said Nagisetty. “We lost in the finals in 2018, so this year I was a little more focused on my fitness and conditioning. I cramped up last year in the finals. I was not going to let it happen again.
“It was a higher flight, one doubles. Druv is great. He has a great forehand and backhand and has a super good volley. That was awesome to end the season this way!’’
PHOTOS: (Top) Clarkston’s Luke Baylis returns a volley during his No. 1 singles semifinal at Midland Tennis Center. (Middle) Ann Arbor Huron’s Max Brodkey and Anvit Rao get together during their No. 1 doubles semifinal win. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)