Hank Lin
Second-ranked Columbus North didn’t waste any time cruising to a victory against Columbus East in Thursday’s boys tennis sectional semifinals at North.
With their 5-0 victory, the Bull Dogs will play Greensburg, a 4-1 winner against Hauser, in today’s 4:30 p.m. final.
“We’ve been talking about, this is a new season for us going into tournament play, and we have a lot of goals for this year and this team, and every match, hopefully we come out with the intensity ready to play, no matter what the level of the competition is,” North coach Kendal Hammel said. “We knew that we were definitely stronger than East team-wise and everything, but we still wanted to go out there and play our best. I was pleased with what we saw.”
North junior Hank Lin overcame a rocky first game to post a 6-1, 6-0 victory against Erik Takahashi at No. 1 singles.
“Honestly, I didn’t play very well,” Lin said. “I was kind of nervous. I just have to have the same mentality every match and the same mindset.”
Parth Shah beat Brady Redelman at No. 2 singles, and Austin Clark blanked Tyler Ernst at No. 3 singles, both by 6-0, 6-0 scores for the Bull Dogs (17-1). North’s Amrit Kar and Anvay Atram topped Trevor Ernst and Ethan Bumbalough 6-0, 6-0 at No. 1 doubles, and Michael Crossman and Yoki Murabayashi defeated Owen Kirk and Henry Ulrich 6-0, 6-1 at No. 2 doubles.
“Obviously, the scoreboard doesn’t look too good, but there were lots of deuces,” East coach Matt Malinsky said. “You can’t really see that when you look at the numbers for tennis. But there were lots of competitive games, lots of good hitting. Erik was hitting the ball really well. If you can’t win on the scoreboard, it’s good to see them hitting well.”
The Olympians finish the season 7-16.
“We had three matches that were either rained out when we were winning, or we came within one or two points,” Malinsky said. “So of those three go the other way, that’s a big difference. All in all, I’m pretty happy with it.”
Jentzel Bechtel
Kameron Blair
Meanwhile, Hauser didn’t get the win as a team, but its No. 1 doubles team will advance in the individual tournament by virtue of its victory. Junior Jentzen Bechtel and sophomore Kameron Blair battled back from a rough first set to post an 0-6, 6-4, 6-3 win against Greensburg’s Jack McKinsey and Reece Beaver.
“It would be nice to go with the team, but it’s nice to go as individuals,” Bechtel said. “We played pretty poorly in the first set. We didn’t play our game.”
“Most of their points were off our mistakes, and we cleaned it up the second and third sets,” Blair added.
The Jets’ Caleb Wallace fell to Dan Fisse 6-0, 6-1 at No. 1 singles, Hunter Pappano lost to Mason McNulty 6-1, 6-3 at No. 2 singles and Colten Hatton fell to Jacob Duerstock 6-2, 6-1 at No. 3 singles. Also for Hauser (6-6), Jayden Blair and RJ Foster lost to Lance Coy and Justin Adkins 6-0, 6-1.
