Wauwatosa West boys tennis team drops 5-2 match to Pirates

The Wauwatosa West boys tennis team lost to Pewaukee, 5-2, on April 14 to start the week and then went 1-2 at the Hartland Invitational on April 16.

Winners against the Pirates in the Woodland Conference match were No. 1 singles Nick Price (6-2, 6-0) and No. 3 doubles Jacob Lueck/Ethan Boekenhauer in a thriller (7-6, 3-6,10-6).

"I was expecting this match to be pretty tight, and it ended up being just that," coach Kosta Zervas said. "However, the score doesn't really indicate that. We lost three close matches that could have gone in different directions had we won some tiebreakers and served better at key points in the match.

"We took some good things that we did, and we'll get better as the season progresses. We had six out of our 10 players in our lineup who were playing their first varsity match, and I knew there would be butterflies and tentative play."

Not surprisingly, one Trojan stood out.

"Nick Price played a dominant match and showed that he's the top player in our conference," Zervas said. "We're going to get better. I just have to be patient with our progress."

West finished 1-2 at the Hartford Invite on Saturday.

West defeated Slinger, 4-3, behind Price (6-1, 6-3), No. 2 Alex Lau (6-2, 6-0), No. 1 doubles Quinn Barkow/Zach Schumacher (1-6, 6-2, 10-8) and No. 3 doubles Lueck/Boekenhauer (4-6, 6-4, 10-3).

The Trojans then lost to Sussex Hamilton, 4-3, as all three doubles teams won: No. 1 Schumacher/Barkow (6-2, 4-6, 10-8), No. 2 doubles Bennett Inman/Niels Peters (7-5, 7-6(8)) and No. 3 doubles Danny Kuehn/Lueck (6-2, 6-3).

They then lost to Kettle Moraine, 4-3, as Price (6-0, 6-0), No. 3 Akshay Bakshi (3-6, 6-3, 10-7) and Lueck/Kuehn (6-0, 6-0) earned wins.

"Overall, we played some good tennis at several spots," Zervas said. "I was happy with our in-match adjustments and our play in our 10-point tiebreakers. Those are pressure-filled breakers, and we were successful in many of them on Saturday.

"We ran out of gas in some of our matches, and the intensity wasn't where I had hoped it would be at some spots on the team. We aren't the most talented team, but we will always play hard and make our opponents work hard to win points. I thought we played much better than our match vs. Pewaukee on Thursday.

"We need to gain experience, and these types of tournaments will do that (three matches in one day). I'm looking forward to see how we play a month from now, I'm expecting to see us continuing to improve each day."