BLOOMINGTON — As the sun descended behind the trees along Ind. 37 and darkness began to settle on the Bloomington North tennis courts Wednesday night, the big question was whether Columbus North and Bloomington South would have to wait until today to finish their regional final.
Fortunately for the Bull Dogs, they picked up their third point with a few rays of light to spare. That gave 14th-ranked Columbus North its first regional since 2014 and a berth in Saturday’s Jasper Semistate.
“It was amazing,” said Kevin Lin, the Bull Dogs’ lone varsity senior. “In the four years of my high school career, this is the first time we’ll be advancing to the semistate round, so it feels great.”
Lin wasted little time in giving the Bull Dogs (13-3) their first point. He rolled to a 6-0, 6-1 win against the Panthers’ Daniel Borhi at No. 1 singles.
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“I felt like I was at the top of my game,” Lin said. “I had some nerves before the match, but as soon as I stepped onto the court, they just disappeared, and I stayed focused.”
Bloomington South tied the match a few minutes later when Marcel Borhi completed a 6-0, 6-2 win against North’s Bhavey Jain at No. 2 doubles.
Moments after that, the Bull Dogs took a 2-1 lead when Nathan Lin and Adam Saad finished off a 6-2, 6-4 win against Holt Henke and Dexter Wu-Cross.
“We had a rough start at the beginning, but as the match went on, we started to play a lot better,” freshman Nathan Lin said.
Saad, a junior, was thrilled with the victory.
“We were a position that needed to win tonight, and we got the job done,” Saad said. “It feels really good to be the team that ended the (regional) drought. We haven’t won in a long time, and it feels really good to win it now.”
North’s clinching point came at No. 2 doubles. Matthew Liu and Joey Zhao bounced back from a second-set setback to claim a 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 win against Andy Chang and Calvin Prenkert.
With the match already decided, the Bull Dogs’ Eamon Ma fell to Ethan Uhls 6-2, 2-6, 6-1 at No. 3 singles.
“I think we knew our strength position-wise that we had to do it in doubles,” North coach Kendal Hammel said. “We needed to win two doubles positions, and from there, find one singles position. Kevin just stepped up and played really well. He took charge right off the bat. As a senior and our No. 1 player and captain, he did what we needed to see right off the bat.”
North will play No. 20 Castle at noon Saturday in the Jasper Semistate. A win would but the Bull Dogs in the state tournament for the first time since 2008.
“We’re excited about it,” Hammel said. “Rankings mean nothing. We’ll start trying to find out a little bit more about them in the next two days and see what kind of players they have. This was a tough battle for us to get us ready hopefully for the next one.”
Jets fall in sectional final
Hauser’s No. 1 doubles team of Aaron Mee and Jacob Luken fell to Greensburg’s Logan Smith and Ben Duerstock 7-5, 6-3 in the sectional final of the doubles tournament.
Mee and Luken led 5-4 in the first set and had a couple of set points, but couldn’t finish it off.
“We obviously would have liked to convert the set points, but even thought we didn’t, we knew we were still going to have to keep playing hard, no matter what happened, and I feel like we did a good job of not giving up in the second set,” Luken said.
