AGGRESSIVE PLAY PAYS OFF

WIAA DIV. 2 BOYS TENNIS STATE TOURNAMENT

Individuals get to state; team comes oh, so close

As the wins started piling up early in May, Medford’s boys tennis team gained confidence in an aggressive style of play that almost took the Raiders all the way to state.

From the team perspective, they fell one win short at the June 9 WIAA Division 2 Altoona sectional.

Individually, however, Medford’s top singles player Logan Searles and its top doubles team of Kevin and Tahtankka Damm are state qualifiers and will play first-round matches today, Thursday, at the WIAA Division 2 tournament at The Sports Core in Kohler.

Searles qualified automatically after finishing fourth in his sectional bracket. He defeated Joseph O’Flaherty of La Crosse Aquinas 6-3, 6-1 in his allimportant quarterfinal match to clinch his state berth.

The Damms lost their quarterfinal match in flight-one singles 6-0, 6-1 to Baldwin-Woodville’s Sam Sykora and Caleb Lokker. But they were notified two days later they had been added to the state doubles field as special qualifi ers based on their quality of work during their 8-7 season.

The doubles team has drawn a firstround rematch with seniors Jack Merrick and Anderson Lowry (12-4) of Eau Claire Regis, who beat them 6-3, 6-2 during Medford’s 5-2 win over the Ramblers on May 17. Searles (10-6) opens state play against an unknown opponent, special qualifier Andrew Minorik (10-10), a junior who is 10-10 for Appleton Xavier.

The state berths are significant steps forward for all three seniors, who said their progress was affected by last year’s COVID-induced shutdown. Two years ago, Searles won the flight-four sectional championship. The Damms were on separate doubles teams that didn’t get out of the subsectionals.

This year, improvements happened quickly with increased confidence.

“Significantly,” Searles said when asked how much he’s improved. “Mainly it’s been about getting confidence in more difficult shots. Once I got more confidence in those I could start doing them in matches and looking better, rather than just using a cut shot.”

Searles said he set his expectations high to start the year, thinking he had a decent shot at state. The Damms said their goals were more short-sighted when the year began.

“I was taking it one match at a time and hoping to just do my best every match and learn,” Kevin said.

“My goal was to advance to sectionals,” Tahtankka said. “That would’ve been the farthest I’d ever made it.”

The doubles team lost early on to the same Baldwin-Woodville team and also lost matches to Rhinelander, Antigo and Regis, but picked up momentum after that. While the Damms lost twice more to a very good Rhinelander team, those matches were competitive.

“The start of the year was a little bit shaky to figure things out and mold our playing styles together,” Kevin said. “Eventually we figured out an aggressive mindset at the net. It kinda worked to our strengths and we gained a lot of confidence. I think that’s what vaulted us into that special qualifier position.”

“They improved throughout the season,” Medford head coach Jake Bucki said. “They really took care of business against all of the teams that were at our subsectional and even a few that were at our sectional that were seeded at their level or below. They beat any one of them they played. Osceola was the threeseed in the other subsectional and they actually played them in one of their first matches of the year. We beat them in a third-set tiebreaker and that’s probably what locked it in.”

Knowing he just needed one win at the sectional to get to state, Searles said he tried to keep a business-as-usual tone going into his match with O’Flaherty.

“I just had to not to get too freaked out about it,” he said. “It’s just another tennis match.”

“We knew that one was going to be one of the bigger matches of the day, just because it was a head-to-head with Aquinas,” Bucki said. “We knew we needed the head-to-heads to even have a shot at (the team title). Logan took care of business.”

After that match, the rest of the day was just about who would get what topfour position in the final standings. Eventual champion Jack Hehli (24-0) of West Salem beat him 6-3, 6-1 in the semifi nals. The third-place match with Alex Erickson of Regis was about as close as it gets with Erickson winning 6-3, 4-6, 10-8. Searles beat Erickson in a threeset match back on May 17. Last week’s third-set tiebreaker was never separated by more than a point until Erickson got match point.

“Logan in the second set made the adjustment he needed to,” Bucki said. “He said I’m going to be aggressive and play my style. He started serving and volleying which we really haven’t done a whole lot of. He got a little bit lazy with his feet, just with positioning. That serving and volleying got his legs back into it and he really took over in that second set.”

Making the jump from flight four to flight one is something Searles said he enjoyed this season.

“Knowing that I might not win every match was kinda nice,” Searles said. “It puts you in your place knowing that you might not be the big dog. You had to fight for it. I play a lot better against guys that are way better than me than I do against guys that aren’t.”

As they close their prep careers on the state stage, the seniors said their goals for the tournament are to do what they do and not let their opponents dictate play.

“My goal is to force them to beat us and not lose it on our own,” Tahtankka Damm said. “We want to be there and play right with them and make them hit the winning shots and all that. We want to compete.”

“It’s about not leaving anything on the table, giving it all we have,” Kevin Damm said. “Don’t be too passive I would say. Sometimes you get a little bit on edge with what you want to do. I want to win the match. I’m going in there wanting to win the match. I’m giving myself a 5050 shot. I’m not saying they beat us last time. We’ll get them this time.”

Team aspect

The team aspect of the sectional had a heartbreaking ending as the Raiders tied Aquinas for first place with 34 points. However, the team state berth went to the Blugolds based on the third item on the tiebreaking list.

The first step in the tiebreaking process is a team that earns four wins over the other in the subsectional and sectional tournament is declared the winner. Medford came close, going 3-0 against the Blugolds Wednesday, which was the toughest part of the process for the Raiders to take. Step two is decided by the team that has more sectional champions. Both teams had two.

Step three is decided by the team that has more runner-ups. That’s where Aquinas won it with two second-place finishers. Medford had one.

“I think there was a little bit of frustration,” Kevin Damm said. “We all knew one more game would’ve won it. We needed to win another game and anybody could’ve done it. Logan had the last match, but that doesn’t mean Logan was the one who lost it. All of us could’ve won one more game and that would’ve been it. If we would’ve beat Baldwin, we would’ve gone to state.”

“There wasn’t a single match that we left out on the court at all,” Bucki said. “Like we talked about as a team, there were two guys on the team that couldn’t have gotten any more points. It wasn’t one person’s fault or anything like that. There were two that were sectional champions. Everybody else could’ve gotten more points. It wasn’t a this person or that person thing at all. It was a team effort.”

While they weren’t eligible for state, Medford’s Ethan Swiantek and Brayden Balciar put the finishing touches on outstanding seasons by winning sectional championships in flight-three and flight-four singles. Swiantek finished his senior year 16-0.

He was a 6-3, 6-2 winner over Kyle Gilbertson of Black River Falls, who just started his singles season in the subsectional. Gilbertson finished the year 3-1 after winning the third-place match over La Crosse Logan’s Alex Konczakowski (12-10). The sectional title was clinched when Swiantek took care of Antigo’s Calvin Jansen (9-5) for the third time this year 6-1, 6-1 in the final.

Balciar, a freshman who didn’t even have to play a subsectional match, was a 6-0, 6-0 winner over La Crosse Logan’s Brayden Depaolo in his first post-season matchup. Balciar finished things off with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Shane Willenbring of Aquinas (13-3) in the championship match. Zach Leber of Regis (11-5) beat Depaolo (2-2) 6-3, 7-6 (10) in the third-place match.

“It’s always exciting when you have those opportunities,” Bucki said. “Ethan finished off an undefeated season there against a player he was really close with, three-setters the first two times, and he kinda went in knowing he had it. He really did. It wasn’t even close.

“Brayden had to make some adjustments (in the final),” Bucki added. “(Willenbring) made some adjustments and Brayden had to change a little bit. It was a really close match. That match was one of the best of the day because both guys wanted it so bad. You could see that neither one was going to let up at all.”

Junior Quinton Tlusty won his semifi nal match in flight two to come within a win of qualifying for state. He defeated Lars Gundersen of Aquinas 6-1, 6-3 to advance to the championship match against Amery’s Joseph Wentz, who got the automatic state berth with a 6-4, 6-2. Wentz is 17-2. Tlusty finished 12-3.

Alex Nunez of Regis (12-6) was a 6-1, 6-3 winner over Gundersen (6-5) in the third-place match.

In flight three doubles, junior Brayden Machon and sophomore Dante Axon went 0-2 and finished fourth. Baldwin-Woodville’s Brogan Drilling and Michael Krinke beat the Raiders (6-4) by a score of 6-1, 6-3 in the semifinals. Altoona’s Tyler Goodwin and Tate Trapani (9-4) were winners in the third-place match. Sam Dickinson and Paulie Reutemen Jr. of Aquinas (15-1) beat Baldwin-Woodville (10-7) 6-1, 6-3 in the final.

Regis was third in the team standings with 29 points, followed by Altoona (27) and Antigo (16).

“I was amazed at how everybody played right from the get go,” Bucki said. If you would’ve looked at how the matches went, we were the team with the most confidence. Nobody started slow by any means or was shocked. It was indoor courts. It’s a whole different atmosphere really. Watching them warm up I was excited because I knew they were playing well right away and everybody carried it over into the matches like I’ve never had for boys or girls. It was exciting to see how confident they were.”