Eagles celebrate the regional championship
Wednesday. photo by Jan Garrison
Article published Oct 4, 2007
CMA blanks
Plymouth in final
BRUCE MARSHALL
Tribune Staff Writer
SOUTH BEND -- The regional boys tennis final at Clay high school between Culver Military Academy and Plymouth was over quickly and decisively, as CMA took home the title by a 5-0 score.
"I was very pleased the way we came out today," said CMA coach Alan Loehr. "We were very business-like and focused."
CMA avoided the possibility of a letdown after playing a tough match against rival Penn on Tuesday, a match they had been preparing for the last two weeks.
"We didn't talk about a letdown last night after beating Penn," said Loehr. "But we did talk a lot about it today. The kids were very focused on this match (against Plymouth). I hate to think what they did in school today, but we'll find that out later.
Tribune Photo/MARCUS MARTER
Culver Academies Omar Kattan returns a ball
while playing against Plymouth Wednesday."I was surprised at the scores. We know Plymouth often overachieves and we expected a fight. And we got that on several courts.
"Our doubles teams both played much looser tonight. Technically they didn't play good, but they were much more focused. I saw a lot less shanks tonight from both our No. 1 and No. 2 doubles.
"I think Plymouth was more fired up coming in, but we just had better talent today.""What can I say," said Plymouth coach Michael Delp," We got beat by a little bit better -- no, make that a lot better team.
"I love my team to death, but we don't have any year-round players. They all play at least two sports.
"Nick (Neidlinger, No. 1 singles player) plays three sports and is still one of the highest rated tennis players around. He had as good a year as he could without going at it (tennis) full time.
"As usual, I feel we would be the second or third best team in the semistate, if we could get there. But we usually get knocked out by Penn or Culver."
Plymouth finishes the season with a 17-5 record, "and all five of the losses came against teams ranked 15th or better," said Delp. "Tonight, I think we could very well have been beaten by the state champion this year."
CMA takes its impressive 18-1 season record and moves on to Saturday's semi-state competition at Clay high school. If the other regionals go as expected, with the winners being Warsaw, LaPorte and Munster, CMA may have a slight edge.
"We have beaten all three of those teams this year," said Loehr. "It wasn't easy, they all gave us good matches. We will have to be both business like and fundamentally sound to beat any of them again."
The semifinals begin at 10:30 a.m. with the winner at the Munster regional taking on the winner of the Concord regional, and the winner of the Portage regional playing CMA.
The semistate finals will be played at 2 p.m., also at Clay high school.
CULVER MILITARY ACADEMY 5, PLYMOUTH 0
At South Bend Clay Tennis Regional
SINGLES: 1. Rogelio (Reggie) Lemarroy beat Nick Neidlinger 6-0, 6-2; 2. Frank Sunseri beat Calvin Hoeffler 6-3, 6-3; 3. Christian Sunseri beat Tim Gordon 6-0, 6-1.
DOUBLES: 1. Omar Kattan-Shareef Kattan beat P.J. Gretter-Sean Flynn 6-2, 6-1; 2. Nithin Reddy-Babak (Bobby) Tehrani beat Jay Badell-Caleb Hadden 6-3, 6-2.