Tennis challenge awaits

Free State, LHS to play in new-look regional

The Free State boys tennis team made things look easy in rolling to the 2009 Class 6A regional championship, picking up two individual titles and a second-place finish to earn three state tournament berths.

Thanks to a shake-up in regional assignments heading into this year’s tournament, however, duplicating last spring’s success might be a bit more difficult.

Instead of the Olathe schools, which were previously grouped with Free State, Lawrence High and Leavenworth, the Firebirds will be grouped with schools from Shawnee Mission, a collection that includes traditional state power and tournament host Shawnee Mission East.

“It’s not that we’ve never been able to compete against them, because we have,” Free State coach Oather Strawderman said. “But they have kids that play not just year-round, but kids that play in national tournaments and place in the top five.”

In addition to the new opponents, the Firebirds will have to make do without three key components of last year’s regional championship team: 2009 state doubles qualifier Blaine Kaehr, who graduated; foreign exchange student Rodolfo Gauto Mariotti; and ’09 regional singles champion Michael Swank, who chose not to play tennis this season.

At the same time, the Firebirds aren’t without a good bit of firepower, and on the eve of today’s tournament, which kicks off at 9 a.m., figuring out a way to maximize their output is still the team’s primary objective.

“The big deal for us is to place well as a team,” Strawderman said. “Qualifying for state (individually), that kind of thing falls into place. When we drive back at the end of the day, we drive back as a team. And the biggest priority is to place as high in regionals as we can.”

A good portion of that success should be directly correlated to the play of Dravid Joseph and Andrew Craig, who make up the Free State No. 1 doubles team that placed third at last week’s league tournament.

Since agreeing to focus their attention on postseason doubles play rather than try to advance in singles, the two have pieced together an impressive resume, earning victories over doubles teams from Goddard, Salina Central and Shawnee Mission North, plus earning wins over the top doubles teams from Olathe Northwest and Leavenworth earlier this week.

“It’s gone well,” said Craig of playing with Joseph, who placed ninth in doubles at last year’s Class 6A state tournament while teamed with Kaehr. “It was a little shaky at first, but we’ve got our strategy down, and we feel a lot more comfortable.”

Lawrence High, meanwhile, is coming off a seventh-place finish at last week’s Sunflower League tournament, a performance LHS coach Chris Marshall called the team’s best of the season, and the coach hopes at least one of his players will earn a top-six finish (the top six singles players and top six doubles teams advance to the state tournament).

The Lions’ best shot in that regard likely will be Byron Varberg, who turned in the city’s highest singles finish at the Sunflower League and will attempt to navigate a talented singles field.

“It’s difficult to judge where you’re at, because now you’re combining the (No. 1 and No. 2 singles players) in the same bracket,” Marshall said. “It all comes down to seeding and draws and matchups. That’s what makes it really difficult to predict any matchups.

“(But) I’m excited, and I’m sure they are,” Marshall added. “It’s the same place we played Sunflower (League), so hopefully there’s a little bit of a comfort level there. Now that the pressure’s on, we’ll see who can rise to the top.”