Seymour’s bid to claim a fourth straight boys’ tennis sectional trophy came up one point short against Austin Friday afternoon.
The Owls won both doubles, but the Eagles swept the singles matches for a 3-2 victory.
By winning both of their sectional matches, Seymour’s No.1 doubles team of Brandon Hubbard and Andrew Levine advance in the individual doubles tournament and will play at Bloomington North Tuesday.
Brownstown Central’s No. 1 doubles team of Reece Carlin and Griffin Stidam won its match against Austin Thursday and also advance to Bloomington.
Hubbard and Levine defeated Jakob Campbell and Josh Gabbard 6-1, 6-2, while Eli Meyer and Joe Schmidt won 6-3, 6-4 over Parker Bruce and Nick Henderson.
Owls coach Sharon Wood praised the doubles players.
“We’re really proud of our one doubles team,” she said. “We’re happy that they’re representing Seymour now in the individual doubles tournament.
“Two guys that have worked really, really hard this year. Halfway through the season we switched them together. The chemistry was just there.”
Hubbard is a senior and Levine is a junior.
“They are amazing young men, good players,” Wood said. “We’re really happy that they had the opportunity to shine here at the sectional and move on.
“The two doubles were amazing. They started out early tonight with the jitters, which was expected. We had a young freshman (Schmidt) and a young sophomore (Meyer) playing in their first sectional, but they settled down really nicely.
“I liked their teamwork.”
And the players’ communication.
“I liked how Eli talked to Joe and helped him figure out where he wanted to go with his shots,” Wood said. “Once Eli stepped up with that leadership, Joe followed right behind him and really started putting balls away.”
In singles, Gavin Peters defeated Hunter Heckman 7-5, 6-2 at No. 1, Brennan Hanner won 6-0, 6-1 over Reuben Kruse at No. 2, and Cameron Richey topped Trevor Alberring 6-0, 6-1 at No. 3.
“We knew Austin was strong in singles from watching them play against Brownstown,” Wood said. “We kind of knew where we had to match up. We had the thought that it would probably come down to one singles, and we couldn’t have asked any more out of Hunter.
“He played an amazing first set. Had some difficulty in the second set getting off to a good start, then he came back and really fought for it. Hunter is a sophomore and their player is a senior, so that experience that the senior had paid off.”
Seymour couldn’t pull out the singles.
“We were just happy that it was a good match, and I’m so proud of all of my singles players on our team,” Wood said.
Hubbard was the only senior to play for Seymour (8-13) in the sectional. Wood said, “There is a bright future for Seymour tennis.”
Austin (15-2) will play the winner of the Columbus Sectional at Bloomington Tuesday.