Columbus North captains Austin Clark, left, and Amrit Kar receive the IHSAA runner-up trophy at the Boys Tennis State Finals on Saturday, October 14 ,2023 at DePauw University in Greencastle.
Rob Baker | For The Republic
GREENCASTLE — Columbus North gave it a hard fought battle in the state championship against the top ranked team in the state in Carmel on Saturday evening.
The second-ranked Bull Dogs fell 3-2 in the championship match to the Greyhounds, but the No. 1 singles player and No. 1 doubles team are still alive for individual championships.
At No. 1 singles, Hank Lin downed Jonathan Yang 6-0, 6-1. Amrit Kar and Anvay Atram defeated Michael Bao and Braedon McIntyre 6-3, 7-5 at No. 1 doubles.
“I’m definitely really proud of my teammates. We all came together and played 110%,” Lin said. “With Carmel, they came up one shot better, but we still have our two spots in 1 singles and 1 doubles.”
The semifinal and final matches Saturday were originally to be held at North Central at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. but the mist and showers lingering during the day moved the contest to the DePauw indoor tennis courts and moved the starting times back to 1:30 and 6:15 p.m..
For Lin, this will be his first opportunity competing in the singles state tournament. On the other hand, this will be the second opportunity for Kar and Atram. They were runners-up last year in doubles, but now this year, they hope to bring home blue and not red medallions.
“It feels great. They were tough matches. We hung in. We played well,” Kar said. “We still know we still have a shot at individual state. We kept putting in 100% and kept fighting and got the ‘W’ eventually. It feels really good.”
“We’ve competed among the top teams in the state, so I think it be a lot easier than last year because a lot of the top teams are not out of it,” Atram added. “Hopefully, we can win.”
In the other three matches, Parth Shah fell to Rocky Li 6-3, 6-1 at No. 2 singles, Austin Clark lost to Wesley Worobel 6-0, 6-2 at No. 3 singles and Michael Crossman and Yoki Murabayashi fell to David Liu and Grant Mu 6-2, 6-1 at No. 2 doubles.
The loss ends the team competition for North, which finished with a 24-2 record.
“We’re very proud of this team overall from the varsity on down to the last guy on the team. They worked all season long,” North coach Kendal Hammel said. “Our goal was to get to state and have a chance to play in the state championship, and we did. We went out there today, we had nothing to lose. We battled out there. It was a long day, a lot of time adjustments. They did really well.”
The Bull Dogs advanced to the final with a 3-2 semifinal win against No. 13 Jasper. Lin downed Trey Gutgsell 6-0, 6-1 at No. 1 singles, Shah topped Joel Levy 6-1, 6-1 at No. 2 singles and it took three sets for Atram and Kar to defeat Eli Flick and Caleb Schnarr 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 at No. 1 doubles.
North’s Clark fell to Elliott Rowling 3-6, 6-2, 7-6 (2) at No. 3 singles, and Crossman and Murabayashi lost to Cole Lampert and Reece Fischer 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (2) at No. 2 doubles.
The Singles and Doubles State Finals will be Friday and Saturday at Park Tudor.
