The West Ottawa boys tennis team won the OK Red Conference tournament by a single point on Saturday, holding off rival Rockford.
The Panthers scored 46 points in the tournament, ahead of Rockford (45), Hudsonville (36), Grand Haven (30), Grandville (18) and East Kentwood (14).
Rockford was the regular-season champion, going 5-0 and beating the Panthers in the dual meet. The teams share the overall OK Red title.
It is the fourth season in a row the Panthers have won at least a share of the title.
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West Ottawa had four flights that finished higher than their seed, which added up to one point better than the Rams on Saturday.
At No. 1 singles, Sebastian Dozeman entered as the fifth seed and made it to the semifinals before finishing fourth.
At No. 2 singles, Trevyn Bethke won the flight title, avenging an earlier loss to East Kentwood in the finals.
At No. 3 singles, Drew Rothstein entered as the top seed and cruised through the tournament to win his flight.
At No. 4 singles, Luke Koschmann was the No. 2 seed and topped the No. 1 seed from Hudsonville to win his flight.
In doubles, Cody Schurman and Brayden Goodwin finished third at No. 1, Landon Meyer and Teddy Mauger reached the finals at No. 2, Brylan McConnell and Lincoln Taylor won the flight title at No. 3, Harper VanNoord and Lukas Woudwyk reached the finals at No. 4 and Hugh Ervine and Hudson Vellinga won at No. 5, avenging an earlier loss to Rockford in the finals.
“The boys have been working incredibly hard all season. After losing to Rockford in the duel match a week ago by 1 point we took a lot of time correcting mistakes and tightening up our play. We knew we would have to play our best to win the event and the boys delivered”
“It took every flight doing their job (and a number of flights going above and beyond) for us to win the tournament,” West Ottawa coach Brian Metz said. “We had a solid gameplay for all of our opponents. The boys listened to feedback and coaching incredibly well. It’s one thing for us to tell them to do something, but for them to execute it so flawlessly is incredibly impressive.”
“We are looking forward to the regional tournament next Thursday and will be focused on continuing to get better over the next few days to try to deliver a regional title to go along with our conference title.”
Contact sports editor Dan D’Addona at Dan.D’Addona@hollandsentinel.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter @DanDAddona or Facebook @HollandSentinelSports.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: West Ottawa tennis claims OK Red Conference tournament title.
