Raider Tennis Finishes 15th in State

Portland High School Tennis finished in 15th place at the state tournament on Friday. The boy's scored five points off five wins throughout the day.

According to coach Joel Cross, “The state tournament is always a chaotic affair for the team and these guys handled the day very well. It has a lot of elements that they aren't used to. Roaming umpires are just one new thing that is thrown at them. There are also three sites that make it difficult for the boys to get the coaching they are used to. In addition, 5 of the flights went out right away across those sites. The teams proved that they were ready and won 4 of those five matches though.”

Cross added, “After that, things settled down a bit as far as the tournament went. Unfortunately, the team also started running into seeded players and only managed to win one more match. Overall, five flights made it to the second round before losing. 3 singles, Dawson Collins, won before rain forced him inside against the #6 seed. 4 singles, Jack Roe, won a tight first match only to find the #4 seed in his second round. 1 doubles, Gabe Hankey and David Yang won their first match in split sets before losing to a VERY good GRCC team. 2 doubles won a very easy first match but then found themselves in a fight against another great GRCC team. Finally, 4 doubles, Ryan Leonard and Cade Vallier won a pretty standard first match before finding #4 Ludington. It was a season where the team met most of their goals and say they're looking forward to the next one.”

Photos courtesy of Brenda Leonard.