As boys tennis season begins this week with a flurry of three matches, longtime Philomath High coach Gary Quandt has a lot of questions to answer about how the varsity roster will come together.
What he does know is that senior Andrew Leonard, senior Sawyer Ainsworth and junior Jackson Rice will likely occupy the team’s top three singles positions.
“After that, it’s kind of going to be a crapshoot,” Quandt said Monday during practice. “Doubles are going to be a little bit weaker than singles as a whole. I still don’t have a clue who’s going to double up with each other and I still don’t know who’s going to play No. 4 singles. So I’m going to be doing some experimenting during these next two weeks of matches.”
Leonard advanced to the quarterfinals of the district tournament for the second straight season last year. Rice had a couple of victories there and Ainsworth was one win away from state as part of the No. 1 doubles team.
Leonard should be in the mix as one of the top singles players in the district, which also includes Cascade, Estacada, Marist Catholic, Molalla, North Marion and Stayton.
“He’s got a good shot at getting qualified for state,” Quandt said. “There’s probably going to be a couple of Marist kids who will qualify in singles and Cascade has a pretty good kid, although they lost their four-time state champion.”
The Cascade player returning is an opponent that Leonard defeated last year.
“So I’m thinking he’s got a shot at maybe third or fourth place in the district,” Quandt said. The top four out of districts move on to state, which this year is scheduled for May 23-25 at Oregon State University.
“Sawyer Ainsworth at No. 2 — he can make some noise,” Quandt said. “He’s been playing pretty well, he’s been playing a lot more this summer, so I’m happy with where he is right now.”
Other returning players that competed in districts last season include seniors Gradin Fairbanks, Osvaldo Garcia-Bazan and Owen Thomas, juniors Ethan Aynes and Jackson Holroyd, and sophomores John Pickett and Lane Schell.
Although the team was in the high school’s auxiliary gym for practice on Monday, the team did get outside during a four-day stretch of nice weather last week. The potential exists for Quandt to emerge from this week’s schedule with a degree of clarity about the lineup. The Warriors have three matches — Tuesday at Blanchet Catholic, Wednesday vs. Lebanon and Friday vs. Silverton — along with a practice on Thursday.
“We can do some challenge matches (in practice) but also, just watch them play matches,” Quandt said. “That’s really more valuable than practice because they’re playing other people.”
Quandt has a new assistant this season in Amy Hunter.
“This is her first year so she’s learning,” he said. “She’s a player at Timberhill and is a yoga instructor but she doesn’t have any formal tennis training so we’re working with her on coaching.”
Philomath will again face Marshfield and North Bend in a doubleheader event in Coos Bay on March 21.
“It’s a fun trip because they have indoor courts … and the boys and girls will be on the same bus so it’s kind of a bonding trip,” Quandt said.
The team will also compete this season in what proves to always be a challenging tournament at Oregon Episcopal School in Portland on April 13.
A new event coming up late this week is an overnight fundraiser called Tennis-a-Thon. It had been scheduled for March 1 at Timberhill Athletic Club in Corvallis but it was postponed because of snow that could’ve made for challenging travel.
“It’s 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. and it’s a fundraiser where the kids go and get sponsors,” Quandt said. “We’re going to do that this Friday so it gets busy this week and next week but then we have spring break in two weeks.”
The 4A/3A/2A/1A Special District 2 Tournament begins May 6 at Molalla and finishes May 9-10 at the Salem Tennis and Swim Club.