Trojan tennis team, five individual headed to state tournament
By Dan Truttschel
Correspondent
The past week was a fairly historic one for the East Troy High School boys tennis team on two fronts.
And both landmark events came simultaneously.
For the first time in program history, the Trojans are headed to the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association Division 2 State Team Tournament following a first-place finish at last week’s East Troy Sectional.
East Troy is also sending five players to this weekend’s individual state tournament – also a first for the program.
All in all, not too shabby a day on the tennis courts.
“I’m super proud of how things came together as a team, and to watch them achieve such a high goal that’s never been done before is very satisfying,” East Troy coach Dave Lindow said. “They will always remember this.”
Advancing to the state tournament this weekend at the Nielsen Tennis Stadium in Madison were seniors Brody Woodson, Vince Baxter and Nick Bourdo in singles and juniors Joe Moede and Jered Brehm in doubles.
Baxter and Bourdo each came home from the sectional with first-place finishes.
Baxter defeated Wayland’s David Kesselman, 6-2, 6-1, and Watertown Luther Prep’s Chris Walther, 6-2, 6-0 in the finals.
“The keys to Vince at sectionals (were) simple,” Lindow said. “(I told him to), ‘Play aggressive, and you are the best player here.’ If he played not to lose, he could be beat.
“He played completely aggressive and won his matches easily. He wanted to get to state in singles really badly, and he played that way. He played like a senior.”
Bourdo also was 2-0, as he beat Kewaskum’s Matt Krautkramer, 6-0, 6-2, and McFarland’s Tyson Laux, 6-2, 6-4 to pick up his title.
The blueprint for success was similar for Bourdo, Lindow said.
“(I told him), ‘Play aggressive,’ and that he was the best player at his flight,” Lindow said. “He did that as well. The last match, the kid was a backboard (and returned everything), and it took a little more offense to win it.”
Woodson, playing at No. 1 singles, finished third overall.
In the opening round, he beat Ripon’s Connor Banerzee, 6-4, 6-1, but fell, 2-6, 5-7 to Luther Prep’s Jeremy Ryno. Woodson bounced back to beta McFarland’s Ben Ruggles, 6-4, 7-5 in the third-place matchup.
Moede-Jered Brehm dropped their only match at No. 1 doubles, 1-6, 2-6, to St. Lawrence Seminary’s Princeton La and Carlos Nunez – but they joined Woodson in gaining a special qualifier to state.
Paullin wins at No. 4
At No. 4 singles, senior Jared Paullin finished first, as he beat St. Mary Catholic’s Max Van Rossum, 6-3, 6-1, and Ripon’s Andrew Redmond, 6-2, 6-4.
Paullin wasn’t eligible to advance to the individual state tournament, as just players in the top-two flights have that opportunity – but his efforts certainly didn’t go unnoticed, Lindow said.
“The keys to our season were to ride our top-four guys in our program at singles and work our hardest to find some doubles pairs and get them ready to compete by the conference tournament,” he said. “We did just that.
“We spent many practices with our top-four kids working with the others to improve the doubles teams. It worked out great for team success.”
East Troy finished with 33 points, ahead of Luther Prep’s 31, McFarland’s 23, Kewaskum’s 18 and Big Foot’s 17.
A look at state
All four East Troy qualifiers opened action in Madison on Thursday night.
Woodson (17-2) played Plymouth’s Gavin Vinverse; Baxter (18-1) faced eighth-seeded Silas Setterstrom, Monroe; Bourdo (21-2) faced sixth-seeded Cecil Lingard, Edgewood; and Moede-Brehm (12-4) played University School of Milwaukee’s Addison Elliott and Matt Cooper.
A win for Woodson would send him to a matchup Friday at 11:30 a.m. against Brookfield Academy’s Pablo Dale (18-4), the third seed in the singles draw.
The winner of Baxter/Setterstrom faces either Kohler senior Archie Brohm (19-3) or Edgewood junior Hunter Dunn (12-2), while the Bourdo/Lingard winner gets a second-round contest with either Regis senior Marcus Bourget (13-9) or Notre Dame sophomore William Schneider (22-6).
The winner in doubles advances to face the third-seeded duo of Peter Lamberton or Jacob Ruud, Racine Prairie, in the second round.
“This weekend will be very tough,” Lindow said. “Nick and Vince have very tough seeded players to play, and our No. 1 doubles plays the team that was up for the eighth seed. Brody plays a very good player, but has a chance at moving to the second round.
“We will compete as we always do and see what happens. Just getting to the state tournament in tennis is a great accomplishment.”
East Troy faces perennial state powerhouse Madison Edgewood in one semifinal at the team tournament June 10. The winner plays either Kohler or Racine Prairie later that day for the state title.
See next week’s edition of the newspaper for coverage of the state tournament.
