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Informing the Lincoln High community since 1895

The Advocate

Informing the Lincoln High community since 1895

The Advocate

Informing the Lincoln High community since 1895

The Advocate

Tennis team has best state showing in decades

Christian+Stoneall-Nelson+returns+the+ball+during+a+match+against+Lincoln+East+at+Woods+on+Oct.+5%2C+2015.+Photo+by+Eric+Johnson
Christian Stoneall-Nelson returns the ball during a match against Lincoln East at Woods on Oct. 5, 2015. Photo by Eric Johnson

If you thought it was just another regular tennis season for Lincoln High this year, you’d be wrong.

“This was probably our best season for a long time,” varsity tennis coach Todd Sandberg said. “The JVs won the city tournament, which they haven’t done for quite a while, the reserves had one of their doubles teams go into the city tournament and went undefeated.”

Varsity had a phenomenal year as well finishing 10th at state. The team’s goal was to get at least 7th or 8th. “We fell one match short of that. We went 6-3 in duels and beat Southeast for the second time in a row.” Southeast ended up 2nd at state.

It was also a great season for doubles. “We had our two-doubles team make it this year, which was the first time in about 40 years.”

Doubles got 4th place, so they were medalists. “We also had a young man, Christian Stoneall-Nelson, setting a new school record for overall career wins at 99. The previous record was 97,” Sandberg added.

“Another thing was that every kid, every division, had a winning record, so that tells you how deep we were, “Sandberg said. The doubles teams were particularly very strong, Christian Nelson, who set that record, teamed up with Charlie Gallentine. They were 26-7 in the 5th seed of state. Alex Hamann and Caleb Martin, were 18-6. “They won their first three matches and upset Southeast to get to the semifinals,” Sandberg said. “So the doubles teams were very strong.”

“I need to mention Ethan Bruha, our #1 Singles player, went 13-11, and that’s very tough to have a winning record in #1 Singles. Garrett Brockman played #2 Singles and went 15-9 at the 10th seed in the state,” Sandberg said.

As for next year? “We’re going to miss four seniors a lot. They really changed the whole image of Lincoln High’s Tennis,” Sandberg said. “They completely revamped it.”

“We have a lot of underclassmen though, so hopefully we can kind of keep the success going,” Sandberg added. “We’re going to have some big shoes to fill, it would be asking too much to ask next year’s group to have the season that we did this year, but I still think we’ll have a successful season.”

There were a couple of highlights for the season. “I just hate picking one duel or one tournament, but the Southeast duel was huge to beat them for the second year in a row. We won the Bellevue west tournament on a Saturday, and we were missing one of our seniors. Winning a tournament is a big deal for Lincoln High and we won one, and finished second in two others, so that was nice,” Sandberg said.

Ethan Bruha battles his opponent during a match against Lincoln East at Woods on Oct. 5, 2015. Photo by Eric Johnson
Ethan Bruha battles his opponent during a match against Lincoln East at Woods on Oct. 5, 2015. Photo by Eric Johnson
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