July 1st, was the day the Lewis Cass Boys Tennis team found out that it was go time and were allowed to practice for the upcoming 2020 season. I was fulfilled with joy and I was so excited to get back out on the courts. The Cass boys Tennis team for the season of 2019 was pretty average and I didn’t know what to expect from this group coming into the year. We were going to miss our number one singles player in C.J Burrous and our number one doubles players in Brent Johnson due to them graduating. So, the expectations for this team were everywhere in my opinion. 

The days before our first match had everyone excited and nervous about what the season had in store for. The lineup was very young and was ready to battle against the Berries from Logansport. The Singles players were 1 Singles Jack Salyers, 2 Singles Gannon Davis, and 3 Singles Ethan Johnson. The doubles were David Woolever and Jensen Burrous and number 2 doubles two were Nolan Young and Blaine Rudd. The Kings came out and beat Logansport on their home court to the score of 3-2. The boys then followed this up by sweeping the Cass invite by beating both Eastern and Tippy Valley to keep the trophy home at Cass. The following week the Kings had two rough and hard-fought matches against Twin Lakes and Western. In both matches, the Kings lost to a score of 2-3. This was most definitely a theme of the season, the classic 2-3 losses. Soon after we won 4-6 matches heading into conference. 

The Kings had a great showing at the Hoosier Conference. The doubles team of Woolever and Burrous took down the Blue Devils of Tipton in the first round. Woolever, Burrous, and Davis’ Conference run ended shortly after in the following days. Salyers, Johnson, the new formly team of Rudd, and Bryon Hurst all made it to the semi-finals of the tournament. Salyers placed fourth at number one singles and Rudd and Hurst placed fourth in the doubles 2. Johnson was second in 3 singles. The Kings finished third in a very competitive Hoosier Conference and had a good outing. 

We finished off the season against two competitive teams in Maconaquah and Kokomo with both matches ending in a 2-3 loss. The following week the IHSAA had the Boys Tennis Sectional Draw and the Kings had a very good draw for our bracket. We had to face Logansport, with the winner facing Carrol to go to the championship. On the other side of the bracket, it was Delphi and the Indians of Twin Lakes fighting it out into the championship. Going into Sectionals the team knew there was a chance that four of these teams could seriously win this. The team chemistry going into the Sectional run was at the highest it ever was. We had a very tough fight against Logansport but we pulled through with a 3-2 win. The next round was the Cougars and it was a quick night for us with all of us winning and finishing it off 5-0. That win set up the match of Twin Lakes vs Lewis Cass in the Finals. 

Saturday, October 3, was the day of the sectional championship. We came in with very good team chemistry and knew that we had to all fight and give it our all to win the sectional championship for us. I was very nervous going into my Logansport match that morning and was excited about possibly winning our first-ever sectional for Lewis Cass. Doubles one, came out very strong but just got outmatched by a very experienced team from Twin Lakes and lost 1-6 0-6. Ethan Johnson set the standard by beating his opponent in a handling 6-0 6-1 match. Doubles #2 soon got off the court after losing 1-6 4-6. The Kings were at their final two players Gannon Davis and Jack Salyers left on the court. These two players knew what was on the line and both needed to win to bring home the championship. Salyers and Davis both work on their game the past winter and improved tremendously for this moment to win. Davis won the first set in a huge tiebreaker and then lost the second set 1-6. Davis soon went down 2-5 in the third set and wasn’t looking bright. Salyers won the first set huge by winning it 6-0, then in the second set, he lost 5-7 but could have gotten the job when he was up 5-4. Salyers went into a third set and was soon down 2-4. Flashback over to Davis making his comeback and now it was 4-5 and soon after he lost in a close final game and lost the third set 4-6. As Davis was packing up and getting off the court Salyers finished his match by coming back and winning the third set 6-4. 

The Kings ended the season in defeat 2-3 in the sectional championship. The expectations were very strong and the season of what if COVID-19 hits was a success in my opinion. The team improved throughout the season and had close matches that could have gone either way. I’m very proud of my teammates and I can’t wait to get back out there next year.