Boys Tennis Falls to Masuk

The Boys Tennis Team entered their match against Masuk at Masuk High School on Tuesday with a chance to keep their hopes of qualifying for the state tournament alive. Unfortunately the Rebels were not able to pull out a win against Masuk and fell 5-2.

The Rebels number 1 single player, Matt Hickey, lost to Stevie Diamond in straight sets 6-4, 6-2. A win at the number one spot would have been a strong statement, and possibly have changed the outcome of the entire match.

Brett Pond, usually a first doubles player, made a cameo at second singles and as Hickey did, fell in straight sets to Sonny Caplash 6-0, 6-2. Donald Torre, usually the second singles player needed three sets to beat Jon Strumpf 6-4, 3-6, 6-2, in a match full of questionable calls. When asked what the turning point of the match was Donald did not hesitate to say "calling the line judges on, I felt much more confident with my shots after we had a third party responsible for calling balls in and out." Matt Anderson was pushed from his usual third singles spot to fourth singles and beat Ryan Powers in straight sets 6-1, 6-3.

The first doubles team had an extremely back and forth match, with the last part of the third set on video below. Andrew Wilkens and Greg Kreusser fought valiantly to keep the Rebels postseason hopes alive, but were unable to take the third set from Jon Plavicky and Ryan Beauchamp of Masuk.

The second doubles team of Andrew Smyth and Brett Grabert lost in two sets 6-1, 6-1. Third doubles had an extremely competitive first set, but lost the tiebreaker, and after they found out before the start of the second set that first doubles had lost and there was no longer an oppurtunity to win the match it was tough to put out the required effort and they lost the set 6-0.