Serving up a winner at SMAC tennis tourney

Patuxent takes title, Leonardtown finishes second

Friday, May 16, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by GARY SMITH Leonardtown’s Travis Mattingly, pictured, and teammate Alex Keiter lost to teammates Christian Erk and Jeff Wettengel in the finals Wednesday. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story

Each faced a familiar foe as Patuxent’s Chris Ly faced teammate Ryan Love and Leonardtown’s doubles team of Jeff Wettengel and Christian Erk took on the Raiders’ Travis Mattingly and Alex Keiter.

‘‘It’s not really supposed to happen like that, but it was really cool to play our guys in the finals,” said Mattingly, whose pairing was the only non-seeded entry to reach the finals. ‘‘I don’t think we could have asked for anything more.”

In what turned out to be a more relaxed competition than might have been expected, Ly defeated Love in straight sets, 6-2 and 6-2. Wettengel and Erk won the conference title in straight sets, 6-3 and 6-4.

‘‘It was definitely more relaxing,” Wettengel said. ‘‘The hard part was finding a common enemy. We usually make the other team our enemy, but we can’t do that with out teammates.”

‘‘But at the same time, in a way, it was even more competitive,” countered Erk. ‘‘We had to win bragging rights on our team. They had made a great run, and it was cool that we were able to play them in the finals.”

The same-team matchups in the finals left the Leonardtown and Patuxent coaches in a tough spot.

‘‘I had to stay away from it all,” said Patuxent head coach Pete Siegert. ‘‘I couldn’t sit down there and give one instruction over how to beat the other. It was delightful for me to have those two play in the finals, but I just had to stay away.”

Patuxent, which finished fourth in the season standings, won the team title with 16 points, three more than second-place Leonardtown. Calvert and La Plata tied for third with 12 points each. It was Patuxent’s second consecutive tournament win.

‘‘We had a great season, and I was really confident coming in,” Love said. ‘‘I knew that my teammates were doing extremely well on the season, and I thought that we were going to pull it out. Being able to defend in the tournament is really great.”

In addition to Ly and Love, Patuxent received a first-place finish in girls singles from sophomore Cari Hopson, who is now 17-0 on the season. Hopson defeated Calvert’s Amanda Ocker in straight sets, 6-0 and 6-1.

‘‘I feel like all the training I have done has really paid off,” Hopson said. ‘‘I was hoping to win coming in, but I knew there were going to be some hard times.”

Patuxent’s Christianna Madson and Katie Lewis reached the championship match in girls’ doubles, but fell to La Plata’s Mary Hein and Danira Lutui, 6-2 and 6-4.

‘‘This is pretty exciting,” Hein said. ‘‘We worked pretty hard to win. Our first two matches were just about getting used to playing with each other. Today, we started playing together better, and we started talking more.”

In the mixed doubles final, Leonardtown’s top singles players, Andy Carlson and Meera Mehta, teamed up to win the conference title against La Plata’s Anna Wells and Abe Massad, 6-3 and 6-3.

Mixed doubles was the final match to finish, as Wells and Massad were given time to recover from a grueling semifinals match with Rachel Horner and David Rodriguez of Great Mills.

La Plata emerged from the semis in three sets, 6-2, 5-7, 6-4, but both teams fell in the ensuing match, as Horner and Rodriguez lost to Calvert’s Kristin Benke and Eric Mills, 6-2 and 6-2.

Huntingtown, the regular season champion with a record of 12-0, placed fifth with nine team points.

‘‘A lot of teams mixed things up,” said Huntingtown head coach Rob Martin. ‘‘They mixed things up with their teams, and we went with a different approach. We went with our regulars. In some places it helped us, and in others, we didn’t do so well.”

Huntingtown was dealt a major blow when Calvert’s Clay Gurwell knocked out the Hurricanes’ Ben Nottage, the top seed in boys singles, in the quarterfinals, 7-6 and 6-2. Gurwell finished the tournament in fourth place.