Hanford wins Inland Empire tennis tournament
T.J. Westre and Noah Schwab did not have long list of expectations for the 67th Inland Empire High School Tennis Tournament.
Both accomplished doubles players – the tall, lanky seniors each placed at last year’s district tournament with different partners – the Mead teammates teamed together for the first time at this weekend’s tournament, which concluded Saturday on the Mead High courts.
“Noah and I have been teammates for a long time and we’ve practiced against each other a lot, especially last year,” Westre said. “You get to know someone pretty well practicing against someone. And we’ve both been coached to play the same way, so it was pretty easy for us to play together.”
Unseeded going into the start of play Friday at Central Valley, the pair knocked off two seeded doubles teams: a third-seeded Clarkston team in the quarterfinals Friday and a second-seeded Lewis and Clark duo in Saturday morning’s semifinals – both wins in three sets.
“The win over Lewis and Clark (Luke Brittan and Jordan Strandness) was a tough match and an emotional match for us,” Westre said.
“In both matches we lost the first set and had to pull together in order to make a comeback. I think maybe they took a little more out of us than we thought they did because we couldn’t do it in the finals.”
Hanford’s unseeded team of Quinton Dicken and Shane Sandlin upset the top-seeded Richland duo in the semifinals before sweeping Mead in the finals 6-2, 6-0.
“Against Clarkston and again against LC, we got down and then just put it together to get back into the match,” Schwab said. “We tried to do that again in the final, but it just wasn’t there. We had a little more trouble serving in the final than we had earlier. It just didn’t work this time.”
Hanford’s win in No. 1 doubles combined with a sweep of both boys and girls No. 1 singles highlighted a stellar performance by the Falcons, who won the team title with 186 points. They edged last year’s winner, Richland, which finished with 176. Mead was third with 142.
The tournament featured schools from 46 schools from Washington and Idaho. With two flights of singles play, three of doubles and two more in mixed doubles, the tournament welcomed more than 700 players to courts in and around Spokane.
Hanford senior Luke Thompson, the No. 1 seed in the top singles bracket, finished his tournament sweep by stopping Lake City’s Luke Ness 6-2, 6-4.
“I had never heard of him before this tournament,” Ness said. “He’s an awesome player and he has an incredible drop shot that he disguises really well. He looks like he’s going to hit a top-spin shot and then he’ll hit backspin.”
Thompson hit drop shot after drop shot until he could lure Ness to the net for a passing shot.
“If I could go back and do things differently, I’d have started to play more serve-and-volley with him sooner,” Ness said.
For Thompson, the Inland Empire trophy makes up for never having won the Tri-City Invitational tournament in four tries – a fact his coaches teased him about after collecting his first-place medal.
Hanford junior Sierra Troxel, the top-seeded girls singles player, knocked off Richland’s Tasha Talbot in straight sets.
Mead’s Chelsea Motzer, who lost a 6-4, 6-3 decision to Talbot in the semifinal, rebounded to knock off Davis’ Paige Toop 6-2, 6-2, to earn third place.
A year ago the Davis sister-act doubles team of Megumi and Erica Dumond won the No. 2 girls doubles title. This year, they moved up a bracket and captured the No. 1 championship, topping Carley Schmidt and Carly Riehl of West Valley-Yakima 6-2, 6-1 in the final.
Kennewick’s Stephanie Buckingham and Brock Schuh won the No. 1 mixed doubles bracket, stopping Richland’s Haley Thompson and Taylor Armstrong 6-0, 6-2 in the final.