Oakland County Teams Shine At State Tennis Finals

Oakland County schools were well represented at the varsity boys state tennis finals over the weekend, and Bloomfield area teams finished near the top in three of the four divisions.

Brother Rice High School finished in the top three in Division 1 for the third straight year, winning two individual titles.

In Division 2, Andover High School finished a solid third place behind two perennial contenders.

But it was Detroit Country Day that might have had the most impressive team performance in any division, claiming the Division 3 championship, capturing four individual titles, and reaching the finals in seven of the eight flights.

Here’s a roundup of all the action:

Division 1 

The Division 1 tournament was held in Midland this year where Brother Rice fell just short of winning its second state title in three years. The Warriors finished in second place with 26 points only four points behind Ann Arbor Huron.

Gunnar Peery won No. 2 singles by beating top-seeded Kevin Chang from Ann Arbor Huron in two sets (6-3, 6-4). Peery had to go through all three of the top seeds in his flight to pick up the state title.

Brother Rice’s other win came from its No. 3 doubles team of Joey Hildebrand and George Hamaty. They had the top seed and beat the second-seeded Aaron Brodkey and Colin Williams from Ann Arbor Huron in the finals (5-7, 6-3, 6-4).

West Bloomfield and Adams also finished in the top 10 overall team standings. The Lakers had 12 points and were tied for sixth with Ann Arbor Pioneer. Adams was tied with two other teams for eighth place with 11 points. Troy finished outside of the top 10 by only a single point.

Andrew Cahn nearly captured an individual title for West Bloomfield. He improved on his semifinals run in No. 1 singles last season by getting to the finals this year in the flight. He lost in a really close match (6-3, 5-7, 7-5) to the top seeded Tyler Gardiner from Northville.

Rahul Jain from Adams reached the semifinals of No. 4 singles and Troy had two doubles teams that reached the semifinals. Shalin Shah and Pramod Mulabagula lost in the semifinals of No. 3 doubles and Nick Fava and Mike Mendola lost in the semifinals of No. 4 doubles.

Division 2

Midland Dow was the favorite going into the tournament and it was easy to see why. It won three of the four singles flights in Kalamazoo to win the schools third straight Division 2 team championship.

Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central finished in second place and Andover finished tied for third place with Portage Central.

The Barons competed in Division 2 for the first time and handled themselves quite nicely. Jonah Yousif reached the finals in No. 4 singles and they also had two doubles teams reach the semifinals, No. 3 doubles Dylan Deitch and Cuthbert Sun and No. 4 doubles Ben Beltser and Danny Harwood.

Other Oakland Activities Association teams in the Division were Groves, Seaholm, Lahser and North Farmington. Groves and North Farmington tied for sixth place, Seaholm was in 10th place and Lahser came in 13th place.

Other highlights included Groves’ Evan Ketai reaching the finals in No. 3 singles and North Farmington’s No. 4 doubles team Andrew Murtland and Rob Chapekis winning their flight.

Division 3

It was Country Day’s turn in Division 3 over in Holly.

The Yellowjackets and Cransbrook Kingswood have alternated team state titles back-and-forth in the division since 2008. Cransbrook won it last year and Country Day kept the pattern going by winning its third title since 2006 on Saturday.

It finished in first place with 34 points beating second place St. Joseph by six points and fourth place Cransbrook Kingswood by 12 points.

Players from Country Day reached the finals in seven of eight flights and won four championships. Abhay Hukku and Alex Gruskin won No. 1 doubles, Patrick Adams and Andrew Sun won No. 2 doubles and Blake Burstein and Max Lee won No. 3 doubles.

Rishi Patel picked up an individual title in No. 3 singles by beating the top-seeded Mike Kincaid from St. Joseph in two sets (6-1, 6-1).