TROY — The Troy and Tippecanoe tennis teams took care of business at the Troy DI sectional tennis tournament Wednesday at Troy High School and Troy City Park, advancing all their seeded players on to Saturday’s semifinal and next week’s district tournament.
TROY
Coming off a 15=1 regular season with a team made up of nothing but freshman and sophomores, the Trojans advanced Yasashi Masunaga in singles and Michael Burns and Kellen Nichols in doubles.
“They only lost one game between them,” Troy coach Mark Goldner said.
Masunaga defeated Roman List of Tippecanoe 6-0, 6-0 and Ayden Black of Piqua 6-0, 6-1 before waiting five and a half hours for his go-to district match.
Masunaga finished the day off with a 6-0, retired win over Vandalia-Butler’s John Graham.
Masunaga, the third seed, will face second seed Nick Von Krosigk of Tippecanoe in the semifinals Saturday.
Burns and Nichols did not drop a game.
They defeated Lance Staley and Kirsten Shaneyfelt of Piqua, Josh Kastl and Grady Nardecchia of Butler and Pakawat Sukonket and Noah Easterling of Wayne by matching 6-0, 6-0 scores.
They will face second seed Ryan Hartke and Sean Nichols of Tippecanoe Saturday.
“Saturday will be a whole new world,” Goldner said. “We are playing for placing and hopefully, we can get some firsts or seconds.”
In doubles, Leo Gluck and Troy Whitehead defeated Hachum El Turk and Mason Meisner of Springfield 6-0, 6-0 before losing to fourth seeded Charlie Stiver and Luke Weber of Butler 6-1, 6-4.
“We were up 3-2 in the second set,” Goldner said. “We just didn’t execute on some easy shots. You have to do that. They had a good season, but it is a match maybe we could have won.”
In singles Adam Harris defeated Nolan Shaffer of Tecumseh 6-3, 6-3 before losing to top seed Juan DeDios Aguada of Butler 6-0, 6-0 and Parth Rajput lost to Sean Yoshimura of Wayne 6-0, 6-0.
“Anytime you go 15-1, you have to feel like you had a good season,” Goldner said.
TIPPECANOE
The Tippecanoe tennis team continued another impressive season under Kaci Matthews, advancing both doubles teams and freshman Nick Von Krosigk in singles.
Von Krosigk defeated Keymaurie Henderson of Trotwood-Madison 6-0, 6-0; Clayton Prewitt of Northmont 6-1, 6-1 and Hashem Albezreh of Butler 6-1, 6-1.
He will face Masunaga in Saturday’s semifinals.
In doubles, top seed Kessler Hackenberger and Cameron Davis defeated Noah Baldauf and Parker Slaven of Sidney 6-0, 6-0 and Toby Doss and Matthew Singh of Northmont 6-0, 6-0.
They will face Stiver and Weber of Butler in the semifinals.
Ryan Hartke and Sean Nichols defeated Uyen Nguyen and Nathan Smith of Fairborn 6-0, 6-0 and Takuma Furukawa and Brady Hagan of Sidney 6-1, 6-3.
“When you get to sectionals, it is all about preperation,” Matthews said. “These guys take lessons seriously. They take practice seriously and they take the mental approach seriously.”
In singles, Grant Vonderheide missed district by one set.
He defeated Kevin Liu of Northmont 6-0, 6-0; Tristan Gulley of Fairborn 7-5, 7-6 and Jason Hampton of Trotwood-Madison 6-0, 6-0 before losing to Yoshimura of Wayne 6-1, 1-6, 7-5.
Roman List lost to Masunaga 6-0, 6-0.
“Those guys were our second doubles team and sometime it is tough making the adjustment to singles,” Matthews said. “I thought they both did a great job and they had a great season, going 17-6 against a very competitive schedule. I expect them to have a great offseason.”
PIQUA
Piqua finished a successful season, but had no one advance to district.
In singles, Joshua Partee defeated Yozef Alvarado of Springfield 6-0, 6-0 before losing to Yoshimura 6-2, 6-3.
Seth Staley lost to Myles Steenrod of Sidney 3-6, 7-5, 6-4 and Ayden Black defeated Brennan Barnett of Tecumseh 6-1, 6-2 before losing to Masunaga 6-0, 6-1.
In doubles, Lance Staley and Kristen Shaneyfelt lost to Burns and Nichols 6-0, 60 and Phillip Rossman and Seth Foster lost to Trotwood-Madison 6-3, 6-0.
Sports Editor Rob Kiser can be reached at [email protected]