DUNLAP – As expected, a boys tennis match between the lone unbeatens in the Northern Lakes Conference was close and contentious. Prepping for this week’s NLC Tournament, Warsaw (9-2, 7-0 NLC) and Concord (9-6, 6-1 NLC) squared off Monday in Dunlap, with the visiting Tigers getting a 3-2 win. “To go undefeated in the regular season, that’s huge,” Warsaw coach Rick Orban said. “To be honest, that’s a lot harder than winning the tourney. It truly is, because you have to be on seven different nights.” By winning the regular season title, Warsaw has the inside track on an overall conference championship by winning this week’s tournament, which will take place at Concord on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. “You want to win it outright,” Orban said about going for first at the tournament, instead of second and possibly splitting the NLC title with Concord. “It’s going to take a lot of focus. That’s a three-day tourney and anything can go wrong.” Going into the final regular-season match of the season, Orban’s guys seemed to lack that focus. “We had the worst practice we’ve had the entire season on Friday,” he said. “There was bickering. It was an absolutely terrible practice. Nothing got accomplished. We talked about that at the JV tournament Saturday at Wawasee, and I knew we were going to come out flat.” In the early stages of the match, the Tigers trailed on four of the five courts, with Concord going on to win the first set on three of them, including both doubles courts. Entering the match undefeated, Warsaw’s No. 2 doubles duo of Connor Singrey and Will Petro bounced back from a 6-4 opening-set loss to win the next two 6-2, 6-2. At No. 1 doubles, Warsaw’s A.J. Herendeen and Sam Rice also rebounded from a 7-5 opening-set loss against Concord’s T Cunningham and Trevor Warren to take the second 6-3. However, in the third set, Cunningham and Warren led the majority of the time, eventually getting the 7-2 tiebreaker. The first two matches to be completed were Concord’s Nick Pollock defeating Kyle Wettschurack 6-4, 6-2 at No. 1 singles and Warsaw’s Alek Jansen putting Jack Hinkle away 6-1, 6-4 at No. 3 singles. With four matches in, the team score was knotted at 2-2, leaving the No. 2 singles match between Warsaw’s Evan Miller and Concord’s Matt Kotva the last one going. Following Miller’s 7-5 win in the first set, the match on the No. 2 court began to get a little tense, as line calls were disputed. After some back-and-forth discussions, Warsaw assistant coach Jan Orban was asked to come out as a line judge. In the second set, Miller fell behind 5-4, but fought back to force a tiebreaker, battling through a cramping hand during the fifth point of the 12th game, which Kotva went on to win and force the tiebreaker. “He actually had some cramps in the first set, but I knew he’d fight his way through it,” Orban said. Miller did fight through it, winning the tiebreaker 7-2, giving the Tigers a perfect regular-season record in the NLC. However, following the No. 2 singles match, words were exchanged between Orban and Concord coach Todd Denton. While Denton may have thought his team was wronged in some way, Orban felt his own team did itself a disservice. “If we play our best tennis and they play their best tennis, we win 4-1, maybe even 5-0,” he said. And while things got a little uncomfortable at the conclusion of the match, Orban was pleased with how his guys responded during it. “To have the 2 doubles come back to win the last two sets and to have Evan come back in his second set – it says a lot about the character on this team,” he said. The opening round of the NLC Tournament will be at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, followed by the semifinals Thursday at 4:30 p.m., with the finals slated for 9 a.m. Saturday at Concord.
