Patuxent claims SMAC crown

Three first-place finishes give Panthers the tournament win

Friday, May 16, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by GARY SMITH Patuxent’s Brittany Herbinko returns a shot against North Point’s Olivia Lewis during Herbinko’s 0-6, 7-5, 6-2 win at the SMAC tennis tournament. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photo by GARY SMITH Calvert’s Liz Trammell returns the ball during her doubles match with teammate Rebecca Shields during a three-set loss to North Point.

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 suppose 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.”

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 their second straight team title.

Calvert and La Plata tied for third with 12 points each.

‘‘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.”

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, who transferred to Calvert High from Chopticon before the school year began, , finished the tournament in fourth place.