CHANUTE — Rains cut short Iola High’s final regular season tennis matches Thursday evening.
Riccardo Barbarossa, Iola’s no. 1 singles player, was the only Mustang to get in all four matches, going 2-2 on the day.
The others — Sam Fager in no. 2 singles, Landon Carson and Patrick Weaver in no. 1 doubles, and Damiean Dryden and Ryan Wools in no. 2 doubles — had their final matches washed away.
Nevertheless, there was plenty of down-to-the-wire action among all of Iola’s scores.
Barbarossa started out on a high note, winning a back-and-forth match against Chanute’s Walter Becknell, 8-5, then cruising to an 8-1 win over Gavin Benedict of Columbus.
The going got tougher from there in the final pool match against El Dorado’s Hayden Greene. Greene prevailed, 8-1, putting Barbarossa in the third-place match against Joel Mathes of Labette County. Mathes won that match, 8-2.
Fager went 1-2 on the day, falling in his opening match to Chanute’s Jaxon Vaughan, 8-2. Fager rebounded nicely, dumping Josh Shultz of Columbus, 8-1, but fell, 8-0, to El Dorado’s Kyler McKibbon. Rains washed away what would have been Fager’s fifth-place match.
The Weaver-Carson combo produced plenty of close rallies, but no wins on the day.
The pair dropped their first match, 8-4, to Grayson Burchett and Camden Hugo of Chanute, then lost an 8-6 heartbreaker to Tucker Peine and Preston Mullere of Columbus. That put them up against John Ferley and Logan Foulkes of El Dorado in a wild roller-coaster of a match that ended with the El Dorado squad winning an 8-7 tiebreaker.
Dryden and Wools went 0-3 as well, falling 8-1 to Trent Cummings and Kaleb Becannon of Chanute, 8-3 to Asa Hulvey and Dylon Garrett of Columbus and 8-0 to Cody Meese and Cody Tole of El Dorado.
The Mustangs were without the services of head coach Chris Belknap, who was sidelined due to illness. Scott Carson, IHS principal, served in Belknap’s stead.
The Mustangs have two weeks to prepare for Class 4A Regional action, set for May 8 in El Dorado.
