May 1, 2017 at 1:20 p.m.
Tennis: Hodags beat Antigo 4-3 to gain upper hand in GNC
Tennis: Hodags beat Antigo 4-3 to gain upper hand in GNC
The Hodags and Red Robins followed the script to a tee Friday afternoon, with Rhinelander pulling out two of three, three-setters and defeating Antigo 4-3 at the McKenna Tennis Courts in the first meeting of the season between the conference rivals.
"It was typical Antigo," Rhinelander High School boys' tennis coach Bob Heideman said. "Down to the wire with swinging momentum at a number of flights."
The swing matches for the Hodags ended up being No. 2 singles and No. 1 doubles.
Rhinelander dropped the first set in both matches, but rallied back to win in three sets.
At No. 1 doubles, the Hodag team of Jared Fabich and Grant Gilbert dropped the first set to Cole Johnson and Collin Schedlbauer 3-6, rallied to take the second set in a tiebreaker 7-6 (4) and won the third 6-3.
"(They) won their second important three-set match in a row," Heideman said of his top doubles pairing. "They go up and down. We know where the errors are and what to do. It is a matter of playing solid tennis over extended stretches."
Meanwhile, over at the second singles court, Markus Johnson was working on the clinching point. After dropping the first set to Antigo's Tyler Husnick 4-6, Johnson rallied to win the last two sets 6-4, 6-4.
"We needed a win in singles and Markus provided it," Heideman said. "He is making the transition to upper level singles but resorts to many of the tactics that made him a successful No. 4 player. He has a highly developed sense of what works and what doesn't in a match and is not afraid to change."
Rhinelander dropped a three-setter at No. 1 singles with Logan Wild falling to Drew Schwarz 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 in match that featured two of last year's conference players of the year. Wild won the honors in singles while Schwarz and Ben Bartletti, were the conference doubles players of the year.
Antigo coach Dave Zalewski, in an effort to stack his singles lineup, broke up the doubles pair.
"That opened the opportunity for our doubles sweep," Heideman said.
The Hodags and Red Robins were tied 2-2 following the results in the lower flights. Bartletti defeated Russell Benoy 6-3, 6-3 at No. 3 singles while Ian Conkey dropped a close match 7-6 (5), 6-4 to Antigo's Tanner Stueck in the fourth flight.
"Ian Conkey had a good match - a lot of long points and he came very close to an turning that match," Heideman noted.
Young and Haug cruised past Tommy Blink and Tyler Hickman 6-0, 6-1 in the second doubles flight for Rhinelander while Bessette and Oestreich downed Jake Waters and Brody Bunnell 6-3, 6-1.
"Marshall and Logan at No. 3 doubles are starting to develop some good chemistry on the court. They got stronger as the match went on," Heideman said.
The win moved Rhinelander to 4-0 in the Great Northern Conference with 50 points out of a possible 56. Though it was Antigo's first GNC match of the year (0-1, 6 points), the Red Robins are expected to make short work of the rest of the conference, much like the Hodags. With each individual match victory worth two points, the Hodags gained two points on the Robins in the standings. The teams will meet again May 9 in Rhinelander ahead of the Great Northern Conference tournament, also in Rhinelander, May 14.
Rhinelander hosts Lakeland Tuesday at the RHS tennis courts.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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