By Don Eskins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
Cooper Tennis Complex played host to 19 teams for the 2018 Springfield Tennis Invitational on Tuesday.
Joplin walked away with top honors in the team competiton. Finishing in the runner-up spot were the Glendale Flacons with the Springfield Catholic Fightin Irish capturing third and the Ozark Tigers placing fourth.
Joplin’s Garrett Lewis defeated Jason Nayar of Catholic 8-4 to grab the invitational’s individual championship while Karsten McMillan and Jason Wilde of Jefferson City defeated Central’s Adeesh Pavarthenini and Sage Riddle 8-4 to capture the tournament’s doubles title.
“We knew we had a lot of depth and talent for the tournament even though we were short one of our guys,” said Joplin head coach Ed Engle. “Up until today our kids have never won this tournament. But today our kids got one for us playing well in both singles and doubles.”
CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE TOURNAMENT
Joplin’s Garrett Lewis led the Eagles to this year’s 2018 title. Even though he dropped only four games in the tournament he said his day’s work wasn’t an easy one.
“A round of 32 all in one day, that’s five matches. I won my first four 8-0 but every match was a grind with long drawn out points,” Lewis said. “Today’s final was an exceptionally rough one, Nayar of Catholic played really well, I had to tough it out to get the win.”
Doubles champions Karsten McMillan and Josh Wilde of Jefferson City concurred with Lewis on the difficulty of the tournament.
“It was a difficult meet,” said McMillan. “Pavarthenini and Riddle played really well in the final. Seems like every point went to deuce.”
“Our partnership kept us together,” Wilde said. “When things got tough we wouldn’t let each other get down. We just kept encouraging each other throughout the match.”
“It really feels good to have gotten the win and the tournament’s doubles title,” said McMillan. “But we’ve got to stay humble about it and start getting ready to move on to the next match.”
Central’s Sage Riddle said he and teammate Adeesh Pavarthenini were confident going into the final but McMillan and Wilde posed a very special problem for them.
“We tried to keep it away from them at the net,” Riddle said. “They’re very good up there. But playing two left handers was difficult for us. We fought hard though and overall it was a fun match to play.”
Tournament director Mark Penticuff of Glendale felt that that despite the large number of teams the tournament went smoothly.
“This is a large tournament. It pretty much covers the whole Southwest Missouri area,” said Penticuff. “We’re just happy that all of our competitors seemed to have enjoyed their day here at the Cooper Tennis Complex.”
Singles Medalists
1st: Garrett Lewis- Joplin; 2nd: Jason Nayar- Catholic; 3rd: Finn Wartick- Glendale; 4th: Gustavo Garcia- Joplin.
Top Seven Team Places
1st- Joplin, 2nd- Glendale, 3rd- Catholic 4th- Ozark, 5th- (tie) Kickapoo and Jefferson City, 7th- Central.
