For his first three years of high school tennis, Andrew Leonard’s season ended just one win shy of advancing to state. Now in his final go-round as a Philomath High senior, he’d naturally like to take it one step further.
“I’m hoping to go to state and hopefully will do decent there,” Leonard said Tuesday following a 6-2, 6-1 win on the home courts over Dallas sophomore Samuel Yang. “But we’ll see … I’ll just try to do better than I did last year and have some good matches against the good people that I play.”
Gallery: PHS boys tennis vs. Dallas (March 19, 2024)
A collection of photos from Philomath High’s boys tennis win over Dallas at the PHS courts on Tuesday.
Leonard thrives on the court with serving and the power game.
“My serves are my strong suit along with some power forehands and stuff,” Leonard said. “I think what I need to work on most is a little more versatility, like working on those lesser common shots that are my weaknesses like volleys but also my movement needs to improve a bit because sometimes I’ll just kind of stand in one place and not move quick enough to get to a ball.”
Leonard went to 5-0 on the season with four of those victories coming in straight sets.
Senior Sawyer Ainsworth is another player with high hopes for a successful season and he’s off to a 4-1 start, including Tuesday’s win over Dallas junior Preston Waite. As it turned out, Leonard and Ainsworth were the only two PHS players to see any official action in singles with Dallas having a roster of eight players.
The Warriors won the dual, 8-0, with two wins in singles and one in doubles coming by default.
In doubles, senior Gradin Fairbanks and sophomore Lane Schell had a competitive match against their Dallas counterparts, posting a 7-5, 7-5 victory. Junior Jackson Holroyd and senior Osvaldo Garcia-Bazan took care of their opponents, 6-1, 6-2, and junior Ethan Aynes and senior Owen Thomas posted a 6-1, 6-0 victory to complete a perfect PHS sweep in all of its matches.
Philomath will now turn its attention to a doubleheader Thursday on the coast. The boys will play at 11:30 a.m. vs. Marshfield and 2:30 p.m. vs. North Bend with both matches at the Boys and Girls Club of Southwestern Oregon in Coos Bay. Those plans differ from the original schedule that showed outdoor matches at North Bend but because the weather forecast shows rain, officials decided to play all matches at the indoor venue.
