Sun staff
A war of attrition broke out during the boys’ tennis sectional tournament late last week where local Clermont County student-athletes were pitted against one another, bouncing their counterparts from the bracket and ultimately, ending the season for all local athletes involved.
The nine teams hailing from Clermont County were split between three sectional tournament sites with Amelia and Glen Este playing in Division I at the ATP Tennis Center in Mason and Milford competing at the Mason High School DI sectional. In Division II, the ATP Tennis Center section was a veritable Group of Death, to steal a phrase from world soccer competitions. Batavia, Bethel-Tate, Clermont Northeastern, Goshen, Felicity-Franklin and New Richmond were all placed in the same section, forced to duke it out among eight other teams and returning state placers.
“This year, the sectional got divided and it used to be that all of the really good teams were in one sectional,” Batavia head coach Jon Nau said, “but that’s not the case anymore. Other than Cincinnati Country Day and Indian Hill, I expect us to hold our own.”
Nau’s expectations for the sectional proved to be prophetic in Division II. Of the eight individuals or doubles team that advanced out of the Group of Death sectional, seven were representing Cincinnati Country Day or Indian Hill.
Chris Bak of Clark Montessori was the only outlier to advance to this week’s district tournament and the last line of defense against a Clermont County athlete moving on.
Bak beat Batavia’s No. 1 singles player, Austin Conner, in straight sets. Conner joined New Richmond’s Joe Maxwell and Milford’s Andrew Huxell as the only three singles players from Clermont County to play for a spot in the district tournament.
Maxwell lost to CCD’s Asher Hirsch 6-1, 6-0 in the quarterfinals and Huxell fell to Mason’s Luke Tsai 6-0, 6-1 in the same round.
In the doubles brackets, a handful of Clermont County schools emerged to play in the quaterfinals with a shot at the districts one match away. However, in all four instances, the bevy of SBC talent ran into the doubles teams from CCD and Indian Hill.
Bethel-Tate’s Zac Conrad and Joey Smith, Goshen’s Chris Treadway and Cole Hadley, Felicity-Franklin’s Chris Whitt and Louis Quiles and Batavia’s Joe Sickles and Andrew Truske all made quarterfinal appearances, but fell to eventual district qualifiers from the two powerhouse schools in the section.
Full scores and brackets are available on the Southwest Ohio District Athletic Board’s website at swdab.org.