WINFIELD — Those with high blood pressure would have been advised not to watch Iola High’s duo of senior Bryan Mueller and sophomore Colby Works play tennis over the weekend.
The Mustang doubles team took ninth out of 24 teams at the Class 4A State Tennis Tournament, a ranking that belies the competitive nature of their play. Mueller, a senior, and Works, a sophomore, went to tiebreakers in four out of the six matches they played.
“The tournament was a success and we got to end on a win,” coach Joe Turner said. “We had a 4-2 record, so that’s awesome. They made it come to the wire every time, but it was really nice to come out on a win.”
After losing the first match on Friday — a three-set heartbreaker in which every set went to tiebreakers — the Iolans played two more must-win matches in order to advance to Saturday.
They won their second match 9-7 against Bishop Miege’s Nate Mohler and Tom Ajard.
Their next match didn’t come as easily. Andover Central’s Jacob Murray and Matt Flynn took the first three points of the match, putting Iola in a hole from the start.
Mueller and Works responded by winning seven of the next nine points, seemingly on the way to a victory. But Murray and Flynn bounced back to tie the score at 8-8, forcing another tiebreaker. Mueller and Works survived, winning the tiebreaker 7-5 to move onto Saturday.
IOLA’S HOPES for fifth place went for naught Saturday morning, with a 9-3 loss to Bobby Ho and Ross Benavides of Parsons, the same duo that defeated Mueller and Works in a match one week earlier at regionals. The score wasn’t indicative of how Iola played. Every match point went to deuce, but Iola just couldn’t come out on top.
Still stinging from the loss, Mueller and Works dropped the first three points to Hayden’s Ben Heath and Josh Russell. But, much like the rest of the weekend, they came back to force a tiebreaker. Again, they won the tiebreaker, 7-5.
“Tiebreakers must be our thing,” Mueller said. “We only lost two this whole season, I think, and they were this weekend.”
Iola’s pair finished the day against Buhler’s Lucas Caywood and Hank Goertzen for ninth.
“It started off really well, then in a few sections we kind of had a lapse,” Works said. “Then, once we were down three points and three match points, we kind of just picked it up. We started to like not think about it and just started playing.”
Buhler had an 8-5 advantage, needing only one point to secure the match.
“I was thinking that was the end of it,” Mueller said. “I was already thinking of giving Colby a hug afterwards, telling him how good of a season we had and then all of a sudden, Colby steps up clutch-like and just owned.”
