Clay’s tennis buddies lead the Eagles to third place

It is good to have a strong No. 1 singles player, and it helps when that player has friends.

Many of Clay junior Will Horvath’s friends have joined the program and the team finished 17-5 in dual matches and third in a very competitive Three Rivers Athletic Conference.

“He has got a fever for it and he has got a group of friends who are athletes who are catching the fever as well, so it is a cool arrangement,” Ralph said. “He has jumped in with both feet for sure.

“He has got a group of friends who kind of follow his lead, so he gets them out on the courts often,” Ralph continued. “It is pretty cool. Practice ends at 5 or so and the kids stick around for another hour so just hitting around on their own. It is good stuff.

“He has done a nice job of leading his friends into developing as players as well. We got our No. 2 singles player (senior Trenton Moore) ending up third in the TRAC, and he has got some real strong tennis skills. We can probably go all the way down to 10 or 11 players are basically just as good as our sixth player, so that is kind of cool.”

Horvath said, “We don’t have too many people who play in the offseason, so what I did is, I got a bunch of JV players who just kind of picked up the sport and we ran with it.”

Moore was 2-1 at first doubles and 5-4 at second singles this season, and for his career he is 35-30. At the TRAC second doubles tournament, he opened with a 6-3, 7-6 (9-7) win over Fremont Ross’ Kurt Harrison, lost to St. John’s Tyler Wood 6-1, 6-0 in the semis and then defeated Central Catholic’s Justin Hire 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 for third place.

Then, there was Clay’s first doubles team, which scored enough points to propel the Eagles into third place in the team standings. Combining the dual meets and the tournament, champion St. John’s scored 28 followed by Findlay (24), Clay (20), St. Francis (16), Central (12), Ross (8) and Lima Senior and Whitmer scored two points each.

“We finished third a couple other times, but it’s definitely a good accomplishment for us,” Ralph said. “We had our first doubles team came in fourth in the TRAC. They are both seniors, so they have a lot of experience under their belt. That was helpful.”

The first doubles team consisted of Caleb Bundy, who was 8-3 in first doubles, 2-2 in second doubles and 1-0 in second singles, and Gavin Alexander, who was 8-5 in first doubles, 1-1 in second doubles, 1-1 in second singles and 1-0 in third singles this year. Alexander is 21-18 for his career.

Easton Snyder is 2-1 in first doubles, 6-3 in third singles and finished fourth in the TRAC at third singles, going 2-1. He is 38-23 career-wise. As sophomores playing first doubles together two years ago, Moore and Snyder won 11 of their first 15 matches.

Caleb Bench is 0-2 in first doubles, 5-2 in second doubles, and 1-2 at the TRAC meet. Chantah Chantakham only had one career varsity match before this season and he won it, and this year is a combined 14-10 at both singles and doubles, and Kurt Wells is 9-6 this year and is 14-8 for his career.

Big dual wins for the Eagles came over Bowling Green (5-0), Port Clinton (4-1), Sylvania Southview (4-1), Clyde (5-0), Lima Senior (5-0), Springfield (5-0), Central (4-1), Ross (4-1), St. Francis (4-1), Rossford (5-0) and Anthony Wayne (3-2).