Emporia High’s Chris Reimer entered the opening day of the State tennis tournament on Friday knowing that he would have to step up his game if he wanted to be a factor in the race for the State singles title.
For a while, it worked.
When it didn’t, things turned sour for Reimer, and the result was an early exit from the tournament for the EHS freshman.
Reimer lost to both of his opponents on the day, dropping a 6-1, 6-1 decision to Salina Central’s Spencer Brass before losing to Winfield’s Adam Lawrence, 6-4, 6-1.
“In both matches, a tried to go for a lot,” Reimer said. “At the start of both my matches, it was working, and then when it didn’t work, I started getting frustrated and I just couldn’t make my shots.”
While Reimer was simply overmatched in his opening-round loss to Brass, who entered the tournament with the second-best winning percentage (.857) of the 16 contestants, Reimer’s aggressive play in his match against Lawrence saw him produce what his coach said was his best tennis of the year.
Reimer held serve twice and broke Lawrence once to jump out to a 3-0 lead in the first set, doing so by battling Lawrence from baseline to baseline with well-placed groundstrokes.
“He started off the second match playing probably the best tennis I’ve seen him play this year,” EHS coach Matt Irby said. “He was really hitting it well and moving well.”
However, things quickly went south for Reimer, as Lawrence adjusted and took the next five games to take a 5-3 lead. Reimer held serve once more to close to within 5-4, but Lawrence ended the first set in the next game to win, 6-4.
In the second set of the match, the two were tied at 1 before Lawrence took the next five games to win in straight sets.
“You can’t play people at State like you play people at other tournaments. If you just get it back over the net, they’ll pretty much put the ball away,” Reimer said. “At the start, I was hitting really well. I guess I expected to keep doing that, and when it didn’t happen ... thing s got away from me.
“They (the other players) were just more consistent than I was.”
The two losses ended the season for Reimer, who finished with a 12-14 record overall in his first year at the high school level.
“He battled his butt off,” Irby said. “He really competed hard. Overall, I was really happy with him.”
In doubles action, the duo of Grant Price and Kyle deBlonk achieved their goal of making it to the second day of action, but not quite as the two had planned.
The pair finished with a 1-2 record on the day, sandwiching losses to teams from McPherson and Hutchinson around a victory over a team from Gardner-Edgerton, which put Price and deBlonk in the running to finish in the medals, but no better than ninth.
“I think for the most part, we played pretty well as a team and came out and gave the effort that we wanted to,” deBlonk said. “We played well even though the results didn’t really show it.”
In their first match of the day against Brady Crist and Cody Fawl of McPherson, Price and deBlonk matched Crist and Fawl nearly point-for-point to play to a 5-all tie, and then the McPherson pair held serve to take a 6-5 lead.
With deBlonk serving, the two teams traded blows back and forth, playing to several deuces until McPherson finally broke through with the break to win the set, 7-5. Price and deBlonk never could get back on track, as Crist and Fawl took the second set, 6-1.
“It was close the whole way, they jut couldn’t quite win the big point,” Irby said. “That was pretty disheartening when you play that long and then lose it.”
The EHS pair rebounded nicely with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Toby Offergeld and Christ Stone of Gardner-Edgerton, a match in which deBlonk said the key was getting first serves in play.
“When we got our first serves in, we won most of those points, and that helped us out,” he said. “I think we just took control of the points to where they couldn’t do anything.”
With hopes of a top-5 finish still alive, Price and deBlonk faced Austin O’Neal and Ben Braun of Hutchinson in their third match of the day. Price and deBlonk actually jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first set, but O’Neal and Braun came back to tie it at 3, and then it was all Hutchinson from there.
O’Neal and Braun won the next six games to win the pro-set match, 9-3.
However, Price and deBlonk are still in the running to earn a medal, needing just one victory today to earn
“We know how well we have to play to win,” deBlonk said. “Every team you play is good.”
Play resumes today at the EHS tennis courts at 12:30 p.m.