A young and inexperienced Columbus East boys tennis team didn’t get any favors by having to play one of the state’s perennially strong squads right out of the gate.
Bloomington South did not drop a singles game and won both doubles matches in straight sets Monday to post a season-opening 5-0 victory against the Olympians.
“It’s a tough matchup,” East coach Matt Malinsky said. “Bloomington South is really tough. They have some players on their team that play in tournaments year-round, and they’re just tough competitors.”
The Olympians, meanwhile, have no seniors and only one full-time varsity returner, and two others who played in at least one match last season. The lone returner, Jackson Stevens, fell to Konner Shapiro 6-0, 6-0 at No. 1 singles.
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East’s Luke Miller lost to Thomas Joyce at No. 2 singles, and Jalen Pleak fell to Chandler Martin at No. 3 singles by the same scores.
“Several matches had a bunch of good points,” Malinsky said. “All three singles matches, the scores don’t show it, but there were several games that went to deuce. We just weren’t able to string enough of those points together to get games out of it.”
The Olympians’ Pranav Kumar and Bryce Buening lost to Chris Piekarsky and Holt Henke 6-0, 6-1 at No. 1 doubles. Nathan Hatchett and Caige Comstock played the most competitive match of the day in falling to Calvin Prenkert and Andy Chang 6-2, 6-3 at No. 2 doubles.
Malinsky was encouraged by the way that No. 2 doubles team performed.
“I thought they were playing really well together,” Malinsky said. “They had some nice synergy going on with the way they were playing toward the end.”
