DesotoExplorer.com

It was a definite step up for De Soto’s tennis players at the state tournament last Friday and Saturday.

Actually, individually it was more like four steps up for Matt Edwards and one for Andrew Konetzni.

After Edwards and Konetzni finished eighth and seventh, respectively, one year ago, Edwards took fourth place, and Konetzni sixth. De Soto finished fourth as a team, the highest of any team with less than three entries.

“My goal for the guys coming in was I wanted to see them do better than last year,” coach Michael Sullivan said. “And out of all the teams with two or one entry we were the highest, so I’m very happy about that.”

In his opening match of the tournament, Edwards, a junior, faced Nick Romans, a freshman from Independence whom he lost too in a tiebreaker at the Baldwin tournament. Edwards took the first set, 6-5, then took control of the match in the second set, 6-1.

Konetzni, a sophomore, had no trouble with his first opponent and disposed of him, 6-1, 6-2. In the quarterfinals, Konetzni played Chase Dippel, a junior from Lindsborg-Smoky Valley. In the first set Konetzni hung close, eventually losing 6-4 and won one game before losing 6-1 in the final set.

Edwards handled his opponent in the quarterfinals, 6-3, 7-5, clinching a top-four finish and setting up a semifinals match with Dippel. Just like his teammate, Edwards hung close in the first set but lost, 6-4. Dippel, then, in the second set seemed to get stronger and controlled the whole set, giving up no games and very few points and the match ended at 6-4, 6-0.

Dippel went on to win the state title, and Sullivan said hanging that close with a player of Dippel’s caliber could benefit his singles players in the future.

“One of the things that is most impressive about Dippel is he does get stronger as the match goes, so the fact that they hung with him, that’s good,” Sullivan said. “If they hung with him this year, they’re going to be able to play with him and compete with him, maybe have a chance to beat him next year.”

Konetzni went into the consolation bracket and blew out his first opponent, 9-0 in tj nine-game pro set used in the consolation side of the bracket.

Against Logan Palenske in the fifth- and sixth-place match, Konetzni grew a little agitated with the style of the match. Palenske, after falling behind early because he tried to hit with Konetzni, implemented a strategy of hitting lob after lob, trying to merely return Konetzni’s shots instead of going on the offensive. Konetzni went down 5-3 shortly after the switch, but Konetzni was able to break serve and trailed 5-4. From there, it was all Palenske who won, 9-5.

“I get really tired easily, with my legs, so I couldn’t stand there that long. I don’t like that style of play, just the complete push, hitting the ball 20,000 feet in the air and not doing anything with it. I’m not fit to stand in the 40 times,” Konetzni said. “So I just went for it. It’s not fun for me to play people like that.”

With Edwards, once Dippel knocked him into the third and fourth place game he faced Dan Porter, a junior from Independence.

Edwards lost, 6-3, 6-2, and also grew a little frustrated by what he called “backboard” play, where the opponent just tries to return everything instead of trying to hit shots to force errors.

“About anything you do, the ball comes back,” Edwards said. “But I couldn’t hit an overhead. I missed probably 20 overheads. If I would have hit those in, it would have been a lot different match.”

Both players, although defeated in their final matches were happy with the improvement they made over last year and proud of nabbing fourth place for their team after being part of the second-place team last year that boasted three entries.

“With two entries, both singles, that makes it a little tougher,” Edwards said. “I’m really happy with it. I’m satisfied. We’ll all be better next year.”

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