On Saturday, April 20, the Missoula schools hosted the annual Western AA Tennis Tournament at Playfair Park and The Fort Missoula Tennis Courts. AA schools from all over the western side of the state came to battle it out in both singles and doubles. The schools present were Hellgate, Sentinel, Big Sky, Glacier, Flathead, Butte, Helena, and Capital.
Different from most high school tennis matches, the Western AA is a tournament format. Meaning that instead of having one match against another player of the same level, every player gets put into a draw where they will play up to 4 matches against players of a similar level. So there was a 1 and 2 draw and a 3 and 4 draw for both singles and doubles.
Playing in the 1 & 2 draw for Hellgate on the girls singles side was Elliotte Banziger (10) and Kendall Adler (11), in the 3 & 4 draw was Chloe McCulloch (12) and Adelaide Terwilliger (9). On the boys singles side Samuel Ender (11) and Jack Welch (10) played in the 1 & 2 brackets, with Andrew Dunman (9) and Aidan LaTrielle March (9).
In doubles the girls had Brooke Best (12) and Mae Michelson (12) playing together and Laine Banziger (12) and Maia Yatsko (9) together in the 1 & 2 bracket. In the 3 & 4 draw was Lucia Johnstone (12) and Addy Graybeal (11), with Presley Clark (9) and Jane Lowder (11). In boys doubles 1 & 2 Hellgate had Miles Schroeder (12) with Peter Robinson (12), Oliver Hansen (12) with Mantas O’Neill (12), and Oscar Hanford (11) with Leo Ma (11). In the 3 & 4 draws Nikko Kujawa (11) with Brendan Currie (11) and Jonas Cheney (10) with Milo Oliver (12).
All players were guaranteed 3 matches and all Hellgate players played extremely well. In the singles 1 & 2 bracket Banziger came out on top beating Adler in the finals 8-0. McCulloch beat Terwilliger 8-3 in the finals of the consolation in the 3 & 4 draws. On the boys side both Ender and Welch made it to the semi finals before losing, Ender to Jacob Bishop from Sentinel 8-4 and Welch to Ryan Ashley from Capital 8-2. Dunman won the 3 & 4 bracket playing Benjamin Stake from Sentinel 8-1, LaTrielle March made it to round 2 before losing to Trevin Kockler of Capital.
In the girls doubles 1 & 2 Best and Michelson lost to Sarah Downs and Haven Speer of Glacier in the finals 6-8, the Downs/Speer duo also beat out Banziger and Yatsko one round earlier in the semi finals 1-8. Clark and Lowder lost in round 2 to Morgen McClung and Avery Wolff of Big Sky 0-8. Johnstone and Graybeal made it to the semi finals before losing to Cadence and Cassidy Daniels 0-8. Hansen and O’Neil got to the semi finals before losing to teammates Robinson/Schroeder 5-8, Robinson/Schroeder lost the final round to Glacier team Sam Engellant and Will Rudbach 5-8. Hanford and Ma won their consolation bracket against Helena team Ed Coleman and Ethan Walsh 9-7. Cheney and Oliver made the 2nd round before losing to Kane Szalay and Preston Thormahlen from Sentinel 5-8, Currie and Kujawa won overall against Szalay/Thormahlen 8-0.
Overall, all players played incredibly well and tried their very hardest, especially since for many this was their first high school tennis match ever.
