For the ninth time in the last ten years, the Glendale Falcons claimed a district team championship on the tennis court on Wednesday. The Falcons beat Kickapoo 5-4 in the Class 2, District 11 finals.
After dropping two-out-of-three doubles matches to Kickapoo, Glendale needed to grab four-out-of-six singles matches to win the district title.
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Glendale’s No. two, three and four singles players took care of business; Hayden Fulk, Spencer Weller and Alec Jarvis beat Kickapoo’s Paul Parrish, Nicholas Parker and Robert Gear in singles play, respectively. Kickapoo secured the No. five and six singles matches as Garren Shelley beat Zhilin Huang and Alec Musick beat Ryan Moon.
Meanwhile, with the team score tied at 4-4, the No. one singles players were in a battle that would decide the district title.
Kickapoo’s Garrett Howard picked up the first set over freshman Reid Jarvis 7-5. Jarvis rallied and won the second set 6-2, forcing a deciding third set.
With the third set tied at one game apiece, Jarvis started to notice a limp in his opponent Howard.
“He’s crazy fast,” said Jarvis, “and I hit a shot that he normally gets to, and I figured that he would get to it. But he pulled up and didn’t go for it, so I knew something was up then. And then at thirty-all, he started not going up to serve right and then he had to take an injury timeout.”
Howard took an injury timeout due to leg cramps early in the set. He was able to fight and competed through the pain, but ultimately had to retire due to injury.
“After I hit that lob and I heard him fall to the ground there, I was pretty sure that he was going to have to pull out,” said Jarvis.
“You saw how he cramped and that was very unfortunate, very unfortunate,” said Glendale tennis coach Bob Cooper. “Reid had a lot to do with that. He hits such a big ball that you have to run so hard to get to it. That’s going to take a lot out of your legs. We just hope Garrett recovers quickly and is good to go for the individual tournament Friday.”
On Friday, May 13, these teams will compete again in the individual district tournament with a chance to advance to sectionals and eventually the Class 2 state tournament.
“Kickapoo is our big rival schoolwide, so it’s always nice to come out and get a win against them,” said Reid’s older brother and senior Alec Jarvis. “I’m going to try and make a run at singles [on Friday] and hopefully make it to state. Reid and Garrett [Howard] will be my two biggest competitors there, so we’ll see how that goes.”
Coach Cooper gives all the credit to his players in the midst of winning nine district team titles over the last ten seasons.
“Just seeing them with the plaque and seeing them smile, I just kind of stood back and enjoyed that because I know how much they’ve put into it,” said Cooper. “That’s kind of what I told them, it was a tough match and it was good to see them smiling at the end of it. And I told them they have a lot to smile about in the future.”
