By RYAN WALKER
With a 3-2 victory at Adams Central Monday afternoon, the Bluffton Tigers tennis team clinched its first Allen County Athletic Conference title since 2008.
Robert Vanderkolk, in his 19th season as head coach of the Tigers, joked with his players a few weeks prior when talking about the possibility of winning the conference. He asked some of his freshmen when they were born. “2008,” they replied.
That’s how long it’s been, but it was well worth the wait.
“I’m ecstatic for the guys,” Vanderkolk said. “I’ve been blessed to have coached some great teams. A couple of times, we let it slip away. A couple times, there was just a better team in the conference than us. It’s not like we were a bad tennis team. There was just a team better than us.”
After a narrow 3-2 win at Jay County on Sept 8, Vanderkolk thought his team had a chance to win the ACAC, predicting that would be their toughest opponent.
That wasn’t the case, as Adams Central gave them all they could handle. The Jets had an early lead on three of the five matches, to begin with. Before it got too dicey, Keegan Schwartz for Bluffton reversed the score and got them back in the lead at No. 1 singles, 6-3, 6-0.
The scores for the other matches were Bluffton winning in both doubles matches from Preston Daugherty and Blake Moser 6-2, 6-4 and the duo of Logan Reifsteckand Max Worth 6-2, 6-1.
Adams Central won the other singles matches for their two points from Ean Brown over Drew Pressler 6-2, 6-0 and Reese Moser defeated Anthony Hartman 6-0, 6-4.
Luckily, Vanderkolk didn’t need to prepare his team for the intensity of the match. They were already itching to get out on the court from the moment they stepped on the bus.
“It was fun to watch them on the bus today,” he said. “It was a different bus ride over. I’m not opposed to it, they’re usually a little goofy on the bus and whatnot, but you could just tell there was something different in the air on the bus ride over. And once I saw that I was like, ‘OK, they’re just going to show up, and they’re going to show out, and we’re going to come home with a trophy.’”
Indeed they did.
Winning a conference championship for the first time in 14 years has its own challenges. But now, the Tigers must turn their focus to next week as they compete for a sectional.
The official drawing for the matches will be around 7 p.m. Monday, Sept 26. Bluffton will be towards the end of their match against Leo when they find out when they’re playing and who.
The sectional tournament will feature Bluffton, Huntington North, Adams Central, South Adams, and the host team, Norwell. There’s a chance they will open up Wednesday for round one or draw a bye based on a random draw.
Norwell, who’s competing for the Northeast 8 Conference title, will face the Tigers on Wednesday in what could be a preview or a post-season match. Coach Vanderkolk has been eyeing that match for a while now, looking forward to proving his team’s worth.
“They want to go out and compete against Norwell,” he said. “Not to take anything away from Norwell, but the guys here talk about how good Norwell is. We’re right there with them. I’m not going to guarantee a victory, but I’m also not going to guarantee a loss for our guys. If they go out there and play like they did tonight, I like our chances.”
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