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EDWARDSVILLE – The Edwardsville High boys tennis team dropped a 5-4 decision to Tulsa Riverfield Country Day School in the Edwardsville Spring Invitational tournament on Friday afternoon at the Edwardsville Tennis Center. The tournament’s format had been changed to dual meets against the participating schools after a number of Chicagoland teams dropped out due to the weekend’s weather forecasts calling for rain throughout much of the weekend.
Riverfield is one of the best teams in Oklahoma, finishing second in Class 5A last year by three points, and provided a great test for the Tiger players.
“They’re a good team,” said Edwardsville coach Dave Lipe. “Riverfield is a very good team. I think they finished second in state last year in Oklahoma, so they’re solid. Their number one kid (Aaron Brewer) lost in the final, and he’s a good player. Zach (Trimpe) beat a really good player, and Sam Motley beat a really good player (Tariq Bedri) at six, and we weren’t able to win any other singles matches, including losing two tiebreakers.
“So it’s the third time we’ve lost a close match like this,” Lipe continued, “so we’re hoping that toughens us up and inspires us to play better moving forward.”
The weather played havoc with the scheduling as well. The threat of rain originally forced the match to be scheduled to the indoor courts at the Edwardsville YMCA, but was moved back to the Tennis Center when the predicted rain never materialized.
“The forecasts looked terrible, and based on an 80 to 100 percent chance of rain, nearly all the Chicago teams opted to drop out,” Lipe said. “So when they made that decision, then my decision sort of became, well, alright, who still wants to come. We didn’t cancel the tournament, but it became a series of dual matches, so we’ve got lots of great dual matches as part of this spring invitational.”
Including Riverfield, teams such as St. Xavier Catholic from Louisville, a school from Chicago and local teams such as St. Louis University High, Chaminade College Prep, Belleville East and O’Fallon are in a very-talented field.
“We’ve got a lot of nice group of teams, actually, for the invitational,” Lipe said. “We won’t have a team winner, which is a series of dual matches, but big thanks to Scott Credit Union, our presenting sponsor, that makes this possible. And then also McConnell and Associates, sponsors, also along with Forever Tennis, and Great Rivers and Routes tourism bureau of Southwestern Illinois, so we have those four great sponsors, then of course, our presenting sponsor, Scott Credit Union. So, grateful for our sponsors for staying on board, supporting us again this year, and we’re grateful for the teams that are still here and going to play good tennis.”
Lipe was also grateful to have played a very good team in the Ravens, which will help his team down the road.
"We feel grateful for the opportunity to play Riverfield today. Every single match was competitive, and competitive matches, in theory, should make us stronger. So hopefully. we’re gaining strength.”
The Tigers jumped to a 2-1 lead early in the meet in the doubles matches, with Trimpe and Seth Lipe winning a one-set match 8-3 over Brewer and Cole Knutsen, and Nick Hobin and Motley taking their match over Shageret Singh and Bedri 9-7. Drake Schreiber and Ben Blake lost to Cooper Knutsen and Tyler Patterson 8-4 heading into the singles.
The Tigers started well, with Trimpe winning over Brewer 6-1, 6-2, but the Ravens took the next three matches to take the lead. Cole Knutsen defeated Lipe 6-4, 6-3, Cooper Knutsen won over Schreiber 6-2, 7-5, and Singh won over Hobin 6-7, 6-4, 10-8 in the third set tiebreak. Motley won over Bedri 6-2, 6-2, but Patterson defeated Blake in the deciding match 6-4, 2-6, 10-7 to clinch the match for Riverfield.
Motley’s win over Bedri was very impressive in that Motley has been playing for only a few months, but gained a big win over a top player.
“Sam’s not afraid to win,” Lipe said. “He hits balls in the court, and he’s very competitive and he’s surprised a lot of people. Sam won twice today; he and Zach were the only two who won twice today. He is right there with Nick and Ben for those three spots in our team for five and six, probably, going tomorrow.”
The Tigers are scheduled to play St. Xavier Saturday afternoon at the Edwardsville YMCA, with the start time scheduled for 1:30 p.m., but the site and time are subject to change, depending on how the weather breaks. Lipe’s lineup for the St. Xavier match will be changing.
“Tomorrow, our singles lineup and doubles lineup will be quite a bit different,” Lipe said. “So tomorrow, we’ll have a different lineup, and I think our team will have a different look tomorrow, so we’ll see what happens with our lineup, and we’re looking forward to playing tomorrow.”Chris Rhodes also contributed to this story.
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