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EDWARDSVILLE – The Edwardsville High boys tennis team won its first important match during the Spring Break portion of the schedule with a 9-0 triumph over Marquette Catholic Wednesday afternoon at the Edwardsville Tennis Center.

The match showcased two of the region's top boys tennis teams in Marquette Catholic and Edwardsville in the respective small and large school categories and was more competitive than the final score indicated. The Tigers were able to win all of the matches despite a blustery and windy day with some great performances.

“We’re headed toward the last third of the season, and I thought it was important for us to stay sharp, and we did,” said Edwardsville head coach Dave Lipe. “We really appreciate Marquette and their coaches, Mike Walters, and Chris Logan, for coming over to play us.”

Coach Lipe thought that his team played well against a team that had numerous players qualify for the IHSA Class 1A tournament in 2018.

“They have multiple state qualifiers on their team,” Lipe said, “and I knew we’d have to play well, and we did.”

In the feature singles match of the day that pitted two players who went to last year’s IHSA state tournaments. Zach Trimpe won over Daniel McCluskey 6-0, 6-2 to start the meet off well for Edwardsville.

“Zach played well, and I thought Daniel played well, also,” Lipe said. “It was good competition between two good players. Daniel is very talented, as well, and I think that he has a chance to do some good things in the tournament as well."

A.J. Bower, also a state qualifier for Marquette Catholic last year, was on a commitment Wednesday that he made previously. Marquette tennis coach Mike Walters said he would have loved to see the Bower and McCluskey tandem face some of the best doubles players in the state with Edwardsville.

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Walters said he has a deep respect for Coach Dave Lipe and the Edwardsville program.

"Several of my players have been at Dave's camps," he said. "Dave cares about tennis and he doesn't care what school the person goes to. He has helped a lot of my players. I always wonder how a guy in the middle of Madison County can produce the kind of teams he does year-in-year out. It is always a true honor to play a team like that."

Coach Walters has high hopes for the McCluskey-Bower doubles combination as the season progresses.

"Our team is 12-1 right now and our doubles team of McCluskey and Bower almost took them in three sets," he said. "I think they have a good shot in Class 1A this year."

In the other singles matches, Gabriele Montanari won 6-0, 6-1 over Nathan Joehl, Seth Lipe took the number three singles match over Marc Tassinari 6-0, 6-0, Drake Schreiber also won in number four singles, defeating Cole DeClue 6-0, 6-0, Ben Blake won in the number five singles 6-0, 6-4 over Greg Root and Nick Hobin won the number six singles match over Jack Parker 6-0, 6-3.

In the doubles matches, the team of Montanari and Lipe won their match over McCluskey and Joehl 6-0, 6-0, the number two team of Trimpe and Schreiber won over DeClue and Parker 6-0, 6-0, and the number three team of Hobin and Blake defeated Root and Tassinari 6-2. 6-2.

In additional singles matches, Edwardsville’s Sam Motley defeated Nick Wooden 6-0, 6-0, and Tanner Pieri won his match over Jacob Rummerfield 6-1, 6-0. Motley and Adrian Norcio then paired up to take a doubles match over Wooden and Rummerfield 6-0, 6-0.

The Tigers are now 5-4 in dual meets this season, and go on the road to face perennial Missouri champions Columbia Rock Bridge on Friday in a meet that starts at 4 p.m. Lipe is very excited about the Tigers meeting up with a very talented Bruin team that’s won the last three Missouri titles and a total of seven in its history.

“We’re going to go there and enjoy the competition,” Lipe said, “but we feel that we’re pretty strong, and we can compete at every position.”

Colin Feeney also contributed to this story.

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