Erik Takahashi
Columbus East put together one of its most dominant performances of the season Wednesday in the opening round of the boys tennis Columbus North Sectional.
The Olympians reward? A matchup with second-ranked North in Thursday’s semifinals.
East advanced with a 5-0 win against Edinburgh. Hauser will play Greensburg in Thursday’s other 4:30 p.m. semifinal, and the sectional final is at 4:30 p.m. Friday.
“I think it was just all about mentality and how you play the game and where you play the ball,” East senior Erik Takahashi said. “Getting prepared for North and getting that first win was nice.”
Takahashi beat the Lancers’ Austin Brockman 6-2, 6-2 at No. 1 singles. Olympian senior Brady Redelman topped Milas Burkman 6-0, 6-0 at No. 2 singles.
“I’d say it was a lot of consistency for me — consistent serves and just hitting it back and forcing them to make a mistake,” Redelman said. “I’m just happy we were able to get one this time around. We’ll play our hardest tomorrow and see how it goes.”
Brady Redelman
East’s Tyler Ernst beat Bailey Totten 6-3, 6-1 at No. 3 singles. Also for the Olympians (7-15), Ethan Bumbalough and Trevor Ernst defeated Matthew Burton and Jayson Music 6-1, 6-3 at No. 1 doubles, and Owen Kirk and Henry Ulrich blanked Teddy Crawhorn and Braylon Lenkner 6-0, 6-0 at No. 2 doubles.
“We were fighting injuries the last couple of days with some of our singles players, but I’m glad we were able to get back to full health by today so we could have a good first round,” East coach Matt Malinsky said. “I thought doubles especially did a good job of coming in and out of their formations and moving around the net really well. I guess we’ll see how we can utilize that tomorrow against North, but I thought it worked pretty well today.”
Edinburgh finishes the season 1-13.
“East is a pretty good team,” Edinburgh coach Pete Khensouri said. “We have a young team, but the kids work so hard. We have one senior (Brockman) that played No. 1 (singles), and he played his heart out. No. 1 doubles came alive a little bit toward the end, and the same thing with the No. 3 (singles). I’m so very proud of them.”
