‘We have a lot of confidence’: 10 of 12 district tennis spots go to Lex, Ontario

LEXINGTON — After spending the 2023 tennis post-season playing singles, Lexington senior Karl Etzel is back playing doubles this spring. And that can only mean one thing.

“I’m bringing the curse back,” he said with a wicked smile.

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Etzel and partner Owan Gongwer lost in Saturday’s Division II sectional tournament finals 6-0, 6-1 to top-seeded teammates Dylan Catanese and Ethan Remy, but maybe that was a good thing.

In 2021 and 2022, Lex produced both doubles teams that reached the sectional and district finals. Both years the sectional runners-up flipped the script and exacted revenge for a district title.

Etzel has been on both sides of “The Curse.”

As a freshman, he and Ethan Remy beat Ryan Mecurio and Ross Drlik in the sectional finals, only to see Mecurio and Drlik reverse their fortune in the district finals rematch on the way to a fourth-place finish and first team All-Ohio honors at the state tournament.

As a sophomore, Etzel and Tommy Secrist avenged a loss in the sectional finals to Mecurio and Drlik by beating them for the district title.

If losing in the sectional finals means winning a district title, Etzel will sign up for that every time.

And Remy and Catanese should pray the magic they’ve had playing together the last two years will smite any curse, hex or spell put on them as sectional champs. But they might want to whip up a few extra potions just in case.

“We’ve just got to stay focused,” Remy said about the district tourney Thursday and Saturday in Port Clinton, “and not look too far ahead.”

Remy and Catanese, champs this year in the loaded Lex Invite, lost two games in four sectional matches, with both days of action taking place inside Lakewood Racquet Club because of rainy weather.

Before bouncing Etzel and Gongwer they dismissed Ontario’s fourth-seeded Alex Ellis and Matt Bayes 6-1, 6-0 in the semis. Ellis and Bayes then lost in the third-place match to third-seeded teammates and siblings Pablo and Hector Sanchez Vidal 6-1, 4-6, 6-4.

“We’ve been playing really good doubles the past few weeks and we feel like we can make the second day of the state tournament (which would clinch first team All-Ohio honors),” Catanese said. “Our serves have been really good, and his groundstrokes and my volleys make for a good combination.”

It appears to be the perfect marriage — Remy, the two-time Ohio Cardinal Conference Player of the Year, with Catanese, who has now won 11 doubles titles in his three years with the varsity.

Last year, they broke The Curse, but not without some anxious moments. They beat Gongwer and Jake Chilcote easily in the sectional finals, but had to rally from a 5-4 third set deficit to outlast them for a district crown.

Did that bury The Curse or was it just on hiatus for a year while Etzel was off playing singles?

We’re about to find out because everything points to next weekend’s district doubles finals again being a rematch of the sectional finals.

“(Saturday) was a good day for them,” Etzel said of Remy and Catanese. “We had a game plan, but couldn’t stick with it, so it was a bad day for us. We had a bunch of ad-ins, but couldn’t finish off the games at the net.

“Ethan’s returns were good all day. He kept pinning us deep and we’d have to pop it up and Dylan would poach off that. There’s a lot of things they did good and we did bad.”

Etzel and Gongwer were practically untouchable until the finals, losing three games in their first three matches. That included an impressive 6-0, 6-1 win over the Sanchez Vidal brothers in the semifinals.

“If we could have finished off our deuce games (in the finals), it would have been a lot closer,” Gongwer said.

Added Etzel, “We all played good tennis. We just need to play better. We had ad-in in almost every game that went to deuce and just couldn’t put it away.”

Both singles finalists from Lex could relate. No. 2 seed Philip Etzel had two set points at 5-3 in the first set, but the freshman ended up losing it in a tiebreaker. And sophomore No. 1 seed Cooper Remy jumped to a 3-0 lead in the second set but had to scratch and claw to eventually prevail 7-6, 6-4.

The first set alone featured eight deuce games and took 90 minutes to complete.

“He missed a couple shots (after having those set points) and got flustered,” said Remy, Ethan’s younger brother. “After I held serve, I knew I could break him because I had most of the match. And once we got to the tiebreaker, I played with more confidence.

“The second serve was back and forth. We kept breaking each other’s serve. Hopefully, now that I won (after being runner-up last year) I can break through this year and make it to state.”

If that happens for one or both of Ontario’s doubles teams, that would be historic. The school has never produced a state qualifier in boys tennis, but Etzel, who studies players and teams from all over the state, said he believes all four district-qualifying doubles teams could be headed to the state tournament at the College of Wooster.

‘I think the same,” said Pablo, the older of the Sanchez Vidal brothers. “We played way too bad (against Gongwer and Etzel). I think we were nervous or something because we didn’t play our best at all. We could do way better.

“Same thing here (in the third place match). We won 6-1 in the first (set) and we were way too confident, and then we lost the second. We just need to stay in the game.”

The Sanchez Vidal brothers are Ontario’s two best players, but Ellis and Bayes played No. 1 doubles together all season and that leveled the playing field when both duos squared off against each other.

“It’s tough because they’re used to each other,” Pablo said. “The difference is big, but, hey, we got (the victory).”

Hector expects Ontario’s qualifiers to be at Lakewood hitting with Lex’s players in the days leading up to district. On Monday, Lex is hosting Ottawa Hills at 3:30 p.m. at the high school courts to determine a Final Four berth in the Ohio Tennis Coaches Association state team tournament.

“We’ve just got to be more consistent,” Hector said, “so we can make a run.”

For both Ontario tandems to make it to state would put an exclamation point on a great two years that have seen the Warriors win back to back Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference titles.

“We have a lot of confidence,” Ellis said, “a lot of confidence. And we love each other a lot more than other (doubles) teams.”

“We do,” Bayes said. “We’re really good friends. As long as our heads are in the game and we stay focused and play it point by point, I think we have a really good chance (to make it to state).”

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: ‘We have a lot of confidence’: 10 of 12 district tennis spots go to Lex, Ontario