KHS boys 2nd in conference tennis
CONFERENCE HARDWARE – Members of the KHS boys tennis team show off their conference tournament runner-up plaque. Helping bring home the hardware were, from left: Carter Kitchens, Maddox Mecklenburg, Drake Friesen, Jett Matson, Easton Pine, Xavier Rideno
Elk City dominated the Western Conference Tennis Tournaments last week, but the Kingfisher High School boys held their own.
KHS got at least a fourthplace finish in each of the four brackets Monday to bring home the conference runner-up trophy from Earlywine Tennis Center.
The Jackets racked up 13 points in the doubles brackets, highlighted by a runner-up finish from Jett Matson and Easton Pine in No. 2 double.
The duo were seeded third and opened with a 6-3, 6-3 win over sixth-seeded Chickasha.
That pitted them against the No. 2 seed from Clinton. Matson and Pine won the first set 6-3, but dropped the second 6-2.
That set up a super tie-breaker (first to 10 points) for the match.
The Jackets dominated the tie-breaker 10-3 to advance to the finals.
They were defeated 6-2, 6-2 by top-seeded Elk City for the championship.
The No. 1 doubles duo of Will Shaver and Caden Kitchens took home third.
They were seeded fourth and defeated No. 5 Elgin 7-6, 6-2 in the quarterfinal round.
Top-seeded Elk City earned a 6-0, 6-2 win in the semis, which sent Kitchens and Shaver to the thirdplace match against Wood-ward. They won bronze with a 7-6, 6-2 victory.
Drake Friesen notched five points in No. 2 singles as he finished fifth.
Friesen earned a firstround bye before being knocked off 6-0, 6-1 by one of three Elk City players in the bracket.
He faced yet another Elk in the third-place match and was defeated there.
Carter Kitchens also took part in the bracket and eventually finished fifth.
He lost to Elk City’s Carter Senger 6-0, 6-0 in the opener. Senger won No. 2 single in last year’s Class 4A state tournament.
Kitchens came back to defeat players from Woodward and Elgin to take fifth.
Xavier Ridenour and Maddox Mecklenburg were a part of the No. 1 singles bracket.
Both had to take on Elk City players in the first round.
Mecklenburg, the eighth seed, took on Evan Senger, who was fifth in the 2021 Class 4A No. 1 singles state tournament.
The first-round losses pitted Ridenour and Mecklenburg against each other in the consolation semfinals.
Ridenour won two close sets, 6-4, 7-6, to advance to the consolation championship where he defeated his Anadarko opponent 6-2, 6-0.
Mecklenburg came back to win his seventh-place match.
Elk City won all but one of the brackets and was runner-up in that one.
The Elks posted 34 points to win the conference title.
KHS was next with 22.
Elgin took third with 16, one more point than Clinton.
The KHS girls were seventh overall with their 12 points.
Half of those points came from Sydney Watkins, who was the bronze medalist in No. 1 singles.
Watkins defeated her Weatherford foe 6-4, 6-2 to open the tournament before being knocked off 6-1, 6-1 by Clinton’s Emma Dowdell in the semifinals.
That put her into the third-place match where she outlasted Elgin’s No. 1 singles player 6-3, 5-7, 10-6.
Elk City was the girls champ with 32 points.
Clinton was the conference runner-up with 28.