Ish downs nemesis, named SBC’s top tennis player

Oak Harbor senior Brenen Ish is looking to take his tennis game to another level after being named the Sandusky Bay Conference Bay Division Player of the Year.

Ish is the No. 1 seed at the Division II sectional tournament and has his eyes set on an appearance at the state tournament.

During the Bay Division first singles tournament, Ish started on cruise control, defeating Tiffin Calvert’s Ashton Heminger 6-0, 6-0 and Edison’s Lincoln Meredith 6-0, 6-1. He then found himself in a marathon three-set match but prevailed over his nemesis, Port Clinton’s Elliot Auxter 7-6 (7-3), 0-6, 6-3. A marathon match is right up Ish’s alley.

“He is a real scrappy kid,” said Oak Harbor coach Rick LaFountain. “He works hard, plays every point hard and doesn’t give many points away. To beat him, you really have to play steady tennis. 

“He has only had one loss — he lost the first time to the Port Clinton kid, Elliot Auxter. Honestly, we have not played a really tough schedule — we have not played Norwalk, who has a really good singles player, and Clay and Perrysburg — they are tough,” LaFountain continued.

“But in our neck of the woods, he is pretty good. He is a kid who did not play until he was a freshman, so he is just an athlete. I could tell the first day he came for practice, just watching his feet move out there on the court. He has those little tennis steps that you need for tennis — those little basketball steps and sometimes wrestlers have those quick feet. I think that really helps him get into position to always be ready to hit a good shot.”

This is LaFountain’s 53rd season coaching boys and girls tennis over 29 years and he earned his 500th career win this season. However, Ish is his first SBC champion, even though he has had a handful of state qualifiers.

“It says a lot about the SBC because we have had some good players back in history,” LaFountain said. “It’s a little different today because the entire SBC used to play singles together. So first, second and third singles used to play together, so you have a smaller pool today. 

“At Oak Harbor, I have never coached a first singles champion for boys. My daughter (Ashley) did it four times, but my son (Greg) never did it. We had doubles champions, but never a singles champion.”

Ish and junior Kyle Glaser were the Rockets’ only returning letter winners from the 2019 tennis season. Two years ago, Ish was 22-8 at second singles and Glaser was 14-13 at doubles, and they lead a cast of 14 players this year. This year, Ish is 18-1 in overall singles matches, 7-1 in the SBC, and 2-1 in doubles matches, but he continues to up his game.

“He has been playing quite a bit with Nate Mansour, who was my No.1 player a couple years who is now playing for Phil Conley at Tiffin. Nate, who was also a wrestler, hits a big ball and Brenen did a nice job hitting with him.”

Mansour, as a freshman at Tiffin University, has already gotten one singles match against a GMAC opposition, defeating Kentucky Wesleyan’s Kevin Giron and he won 7-5, 7-6, but he lost his only college doubles match so far. He was a first team all-league player at Oak Harbor.

As a team this year, Oak Harbor is 7-10 overall and 5-7 in SBC dual matches. At the SBC meet two doubles teams, Dom Martinez and Josh Johnson, and Spencer Goldstein and Danny Tack, earned honorable mention accolades after winning fifth place consolation matches.

“I am kind of angry because out of our 10 losses, eight of them have been 3-2, so we could have won eight more matches,” LaFountain said. “We are right there with everyone we played. 

“But I keep telling myself, at the beginning of the year I only had two guys who had ever played any varsity matches. So, age-wise, being we missed out on tennis last year, we are not so young but tennis-experience wise, we may be a little behind. I have a lot of juniors and sophomores that are close, so maybe just one or two more points a match could have made the difference for them.”