Medical Lake boys get their sought-after tennis win over Pullman

Face Clarkston in key Great Northern League match that will measure progress

By PAUL DELANEY

Staff Reporter

It’s not often that a No. 4 singles tennis match-up commands the attention it did last Thursday.

But it was that duel that ultimately decided it for Medical Lake in their 4-3 Great Northern League win on the road against the Pullman Greyhounds.

“Probably the match that stands out the most is our No. 4 singles. Austin Schoonover,” head coach Justin Blayne said. “By the time he started out we were tied 3-3. So everything came down to that last match. “He played real well.”

No pressure on Schoonover, right? “He’s played the best tennis I’ve seen all year,” Blayne said of his senior. Schoonover played on a relatively obscure court at the bottom of a hill. But the walk was worth it for the players on both teams who lined the fences watching the decider.

“It felt like old days when Cardinal pride stepped in and helped us get a win,” Blayne said of the duel that favored Medical Lake, 6-2, 6-4 (7-5).

While Schoonover’s win was a definite high point, the surprise of the afternoon came when No. 1 singles Leon Johnson dropped a two-set decision to Carl Vollmer, 1-6, 2-6. “Leon has not been beaten very often,” Blayne said of his top senior “The Pullman kid played a pretty darned good match.”

It wasn’t the team loss that hurt as much as the individual meeting with Johnson’s rival, whom he lost to earlier, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5. “Records in the individual games are what decides seeding in district play,” Blayne explained of the crucial nature of the battle of No. 1s.

“The kids, collectively as a team, played real well up there on Thursday,” Blayne said. Besides the No. 4 win, the Cards got additional victories from No. 2 Noel Ayos, 6-1, 7-5 over Sam Schaad; Bryan Smith scored identical 6-3 wins over Hyunn Kyo Han at No. 3. Jason Hayes and Danny Klopfenstein picked up the win at No. doubles over the brother-duo of Shashank and Nishant Dwivedi, 6-3, 7-5.

In the deciding set, Hayes and Klopfenstein rallied from being down 1-4 for the win. “Jason and Danny started out slow and realized we better kick it into gear,” Blayne said. “They stepped up and played well the remainder of the second set,” he said.

It was Hayes and Klopfenstein who had the deepest run into last weekend’s 64th annual Inland Empire Tournament. They finished seventh after splitting Saturday play with a three-set win over Kamiakin of Kennewick before losing in three to Gonzaga Prep, 7-6 (8-6), 2-6, 4-6. “We pushed them to three sets but unfortunately came out on the losing end.”

That finale was played under less than the ideal conditions than when play started in the morning at Mt. Spokane High School under bright sunny, blue skies. A front blew in – literally – in the early afternoon. “When the winds picked up it turned from a tennis match to whomever could survive the elements,” Blayne said.

This week the Cards hosted Deer Park this past Tuesday and then travel to Clarkston for a match today, Thursday, May 7. “The Clarkston match will be a true test of how far we’ve come,” Blayne said after his team got skunked, 0-7 in the first meeting in Medical Lake.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected]