The Reeths-Puffer boys tennis team put up a good fight but fell to Mona Shores on Monday 5-3 in a key O-K Green conference match.
The two teams are among the squads battling for second place in the conference, behind powerful Zeeland West, and the match could have gone either way.
The Rockets collected two very nice victories in singles, with Caden Malotke (No. 3) beating Mona Shores’ Josiah Bement 7-5, 6-7, 6-2 in a tough match, and Ethan Frang (No. 4) downing the Sailors' Drew Nielsen 6-0, 6-1.
Ethan Frang, who won his singles match against Mona Shores on Monday.
R-P’s No. 1 doubles team of Jake VandenBosch and Zade Rogers ran their record to a perfect 12-0 with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Mona Shores’ Liam Gossett and Tommy Stewart.
The balance of the match rested on two other doubles matches that did not go the Rockets’ way.
R-P’s No. 2 doubles team of Travis Ambrose and Jaxson Whitaker fell to Mona Shores’ Nathan Opferman and Luke Opferman in a nail-biter, 7-6, 7-5.
“Jaxson and Travis were down 4-1 in the first set and I told them they had to attack and play for the win,” Hankinson said. “They came back and lost in a tie-breaker, then lost the second set 7-5. That was a toss-up.”
The No. 4 doubles team of Cory Judd and Trent VanDam had a big early lead in their match, but ended up falling to Vincent Puroski and Castor Dempsey 7-5, 7-5 in another tough one.
Jake VandenBosch and Jade Rogers, who ran their doubles record to 12-0 on Monday.
Hankinson doesn’t believe Reeths-Puffer has ever beaten Mona Shores in a boys team match, and he thought it could have happened on Monday with a little more luck.
“If we could have flipped two doubles matches, we could have had our first victory ever over Shores, to my knowledge,” the coach said. “I was disappointed, but I really love the effort that was put forward. That was one of the closest results we’ve ever had against Shores.”
The Rockets have more challenges within the next few days. They will play a very strong Holland team on Wednesday in another conference match, then will square off against all the other teams in the county in the Greater Muskegon Athletic Association tournament on Saturday.
Hankinson thinks Mona Shores and Whitehall are probably the favorites in the tournament, but believes his team could do much better than last year’s fifth-place finish.