Tennis season ends at Regionals

CHANUTE — Fort Scott High’s tennis season ended here Thursday and Friday as the Tigers were stuck with tough draws in the Chanute Class 4A Regional Tournament. Both wins came from Fort Scott’s doubles teams in a field that included Independence, Parsons, Chanute and Winfield.

“We knew it would be a tough tournament,” Fort Scott head coach Lynn Barr said. “The singles players had no luck at all drawing in against the top two seeds in their first matches.  The doubles draw was loaded with a lot of good teams. Alex (Gorman) and Micah (Self) were able to get the 9th seed, Elijah (Wright) and Joe (Adams) were the 11th seed. Our doubles teams played some good tennis, but just came up short.”

Gorman and Self (20-13) began the day with a 6-1, 6-0 win over Jonathan Miller and Bret Plumlee of Iola. In the nest round, they lost to Kyle Hutley and Adam Ball of Parsons, 6-4, 6-3. They were eliminated by Tyler Johnson and Mason Holmes of El Dorado, 7-5, 6-3.

“Micah and Alex opened with a very solid win against Iola, coming out and taking control from the start,” Barr said. “In the next round against Parsons, they played a very good first set before falling and hung tough in the second before falling. Coming back on Friday morning to face El Dorado in the elimination match was going to be another tough match. El Dorado took an 8-2 win against us a couple of weeks ago at Chanute, but we played a much better match this time. Playing some of their best tennis of the year they fought hard but couldn’t pull of the upset.

Adams and Wright (14-5) had a 9-3 win over Hill and Peroo of Winfield but were eliminated by Kyle Woods and Isaac Payne of Independence, 6-1, 6-1.

“Elijah and Joe opened with a good win against Winfield, but just couldn’t even get anything going against the Indy team, which was playing very good tennis,” Barr said. “Indy was able to continue that level of play, finishing second.”

Bailey (10-22) fell to Zach Schroeder of Independence, 6-0, 6-0, in his only singles match. Nick Patton (9-6) likewise only got to play one match, falling to eventual champion Rudra Dixit of Parsons, 6-0, 6-0.

Dixit, the Southeast Kansas League’s No. 1 singles champion, won the singles final when Schroeder was forced to retire with an injury. Like Bass of Independence defeated Winfield’s Gavin Crowe, 6-1, 6-1, for third place. Isaiah Fawson of Iola, a Pioneer League school, beat Parsons’ Isaac Stringer in the fifth-place match, 6-2, 6-3.

Sam Hilger and Will Schabel of Independence took the doubles title over teammates Woods and Payne, 6-0, 6-1. Hutley and Ball took third from Chanute’s Alvaro Ribas and Trey Kasten, 7-6 (4), 6-4. Johnson and Holmes won the fifth-place match over Chanute’s Fisher Lund and Brayden Frederick, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-3.