Fort Scott tennis coach: We peaked at the right time

Herald-Tribune

PARSONS, Kan. -- Fort Scott High School's tennis team finished third in the Southeast Kansas League Tournament here Thursday, finishing only behind the traditional league powers, Independence and Parsons.

Independence won its eighth straight league championship and its 19th in the last 20 years. The Bulldogs scored 36 team points as they won the individual championships in all four brackets. Parsons had 21 points while Fort Scott finished with 19. Labette County was fourth with 16 points while Coffeyville and Chanute tied for fifth with 15 points each. Pittsburg's 10 points placed it seventh while Columbus with eighth with nine points and Iola was ninth with seven points.

"One of our goals each season is to peak at the right time of the year and play our best tennis at the SEK, Regional and hopefully the State Tournament," Fort Scott head coach Lynn Barr said. "We did that yesterday. I am very proud of this group of players and they should feel very proud of what they accomplished yesterday as well. Losing all the players we did from last year's team and coming into this tournament with four first-year players, a sophomore who was not a varsity player last year, and one experienced player, not too many would have expected us to finish in third this season, same as we were able to do last year. But these guys really stepped up and gave a great team effort."

Stephen Buntain (23-7) entered the tournament as the No. 2 seed in No. 1 singles and finished in third place. In his first-round match, he defeated seventh-seeded Justin Kidd of Columbus, 8-3. In the next round, he fell to third-seeded Kent Toland of Iola, 6-4, 6-1. In consolation, he beat No. 5 Denton Brader of Labette County, 8-0, then beat Kidd in a rematch in the third-place match, 8-1.

"Stephen continued to play good tennis," Barr said. "(He and Toland) had split their previous two matches this season. But yesterday, Toland was playing at another level, not just against Stephen, but in the final against Independence as well. The first set was very close and could have gone either way, but going into the second set, Toland just got stronger and stronger. Stephen played well, showing a lot of determination after the disappointing loss to Iola, he came back very strong in his remaining matches, playing very solid tennis. I'm sure he and Toland will be facing each other again next week at the Regional Tournament so it should be another battle."

Toland went on to the finals where he lost to Independence's Nick Romans, 7-5, 6-3.

Gabe Quick and Brian Gorman (15-11) took third in No. 2 doubles. They started out with a loss, 8-1, to the third-seeded Pittsburg team of Josh Hamilton and Josh Vannurden. But they won their final three matches. They picked up identical 8-4 wins over seventh-seeded Boone Ott/John Eck of Coffeyville and fifth-seeded Caleb Flax/Matt Willis of Coffeyville and finished up with an 8-6 win over David Warren/Joe Garrett of Labette County.

"Gabe and Brian really stepped it up today," Barr said. "They didn't start out very well against Pittsburg. They had played that team three times already winning one of the three, but all were very close matches. That wasn't the case in this one. But they showed a lot of determination coming back to take the last three matches to place third in their division. They had solid wins over Coffeyville and Chanute to get to the third-place match then came out strong in that one, playing probably their best tennis of the year to take the win over LCHS, which had beaten them 1-8 the last time they faced each other."

Colton Grillott (8-13) was the No. 6 seed in No. 2 singles and finished in fourth place. He took out third-seeded Nick Thomas of Columbus, 8-4, in the first round. No. 2 seed Cody Williamson of Parson took the next match, 6-2, 6-0.

Williamson went on to the finals, where he lost to Indy's Dan Porter, 6-0, 6-0.

In consolation, Grillott beat James Chester of Chanute, 8-6, and lost to No. 5 seed Zach Mitchell, 8-2, in the third-place match.

"Colton had a great tournament," Barr said. "He opened with a decisive win against the No. 3-seeded player in a match that was interrupted by a long rain delay. His two losses were to very good players, but he played well. In his win over Chanute, he fell behind 0-3, then rallied back to win the match. This kid is a tough competitor and doesn't give up when he gets behind and just keeps on fighting until the end of the match. That determination will win him a lot of matches in his high school career. He is going to be a real asset to our tennis program."

Dustin Willard and Jeff Johnson (4-7) were seeded seventh in No. 1 doubles and finished in seventh place. They lost to second-seeded Jeremy Herold/Matt Stutt of Chanute, 8-3, in the first round. They lost their next match as well, 8-5, to the No. 6-seeded team of Ian Ivy/Daniel Griffin of Pittsburg, 8-5. They won the seventh-place match over Columbus' Nick Holman/Andrew Ballantyne, 8-5.

"Dustin and Jeff played some good tennis at times, but had the misfortune of facing a couple of pretty solid teams in their first two matches," Barr said. "There weren't any weak teams in the No. 1 doubles bracket and all the matches were very tough ones. These two are very close to being a good team, just a little more consistency and they can play with almost anyone."

Sam Schroeder and Adam Greenhaw of Independence won the No. 1 doubles title with a 6-1, 6-0 sweep of Labette County's Bret Eckelberry and Jesse Mueller. Indy's Omar Elshabassy/Shane Ferguson beat Parsons' Jason Alexander/Alex Smith, 6-1, 6-0 for the No. 2 doubles title.

Fort Scott will host a Kansas Class 4A Regional Tournament Thursday afternoon. Four other schools -- Chanute, Iola, Ottawa and Paola -- will take part in the tournament. The top four finishers in singles and doubles at the regional advance to the Independence Class 4A Sub-State Tournament the next day. From there, teams will advance to the state tournament May 9-10.