Fairfield, IA- Mt. Pleasant entered the Punj Tennis Center with a different type of confidence after winning the regular season Southeast Conference (SEC) title, earning a 7-1 record against the rest of the SEC. Consequently, the Panthers swept the doubles competition.
Doubles Tournament
The strength of the Panthers has lied in their doubles’ competition with the undefeated tandem of Sawyer Fulton and Max Heater holding on the to the #1-seed, while the squad of Isaiah Lange—who does double duty with the boys’ soccer team—and Charlie Syfert were looking to make noise as the #6-seed.
Heater and Fulton breezed through the quarterfinals and semifinals as they dropped only one game in their four sets of play. Lange and Syfert had a tougher climb if they wanted a chance at a championship.
Despite the tougher competition, the Panthers’ tandem defeated the #3-seed Tyce Hoppe and Ryder Keefe of Fort Madison in two sets, 6-4 and 6-1. Standing in their way was Fairfield’s #2-seed Pranit Ruia and Caelan Chang, who had just gotten the better of Mt. Pleasant’s Grayson Walker and Carter Gehling the week before.
Lange and Syfert did not balk at the opportunity, taking the two sets 6-4 and 6-3 over the Trojans. This set up an all-Mt. Pleasant championship bout that Fulton and Heater handled with ease, snatching both sets by scores of 6-1, to finish as conference champions.
Ruia and Chang would knock down #4 Holden Fraise and Elijah Broadhurst to take home the bronze medal. The teams of Fulton and Heater, Lange and Syfert, and Ruia and Chang each earned All-Conference honors.
Hoppe and Keefe took 5th place, while the squad of Aaron Carlson and Yangyi Zhong of Fairfield rounded out the top six.
Singles Tournament
#1 Bowen Zhang was looking to continue Fairfield’s run of singles dominance intact, and he started the tournament with a 6-1, 6-3 victory over Mt. Pleasant’s #8 Carter Gehling. In his first contest with a Grayhound, Zhang took down #4 Avery Cameron 6-0, 6-3 to advance to the championship contest.
Meeting him there was #2 Patrick Morgan of Burlington, as the Grayhound skipped through Mt. Pleasant’s #10 Grayson Walker, who had to beat #7 John Helenthal of Keokuk to even make the final tournament bracket, and #3 Rowan Benda of Fort Madison to make the finals.
In a contentious showdown, Zhang snuck away with the first set 7-5 and did just enough in the second round to end out on top 6-4 and as the SEC champion. Benda would defeat Cameron in the 3rd place match, 6-4 and 6-2, for the bronze medal.
In the consolation bracket, Gehling worked his way to the 5th place match after winning the tiebreaker over #5 Caleb Mondon of Keokuk. Nevertheless, the Panther would fall 8-3 to #6 Max Craver of Fairfield.
Walker would end up defeating Mondon in the 7th place match, 8-6, to finish out his day.
Zhang, Morgan, and Benda each claimed All-Conference honors.
Up Next
Fairfield will host Fort Madison, Keokuk, and Mt. Pleasant on Saturday, May 16th, for the Class 1A District Singles and Doubles competition.