Boys tennis takes first at state

In their first year back in Class B competition in more than a decade, the Bigfork High School boys and girls tennis teams left quite a mark at last weekend's Class B/C State Tournament.

The boys won the state team title, the girls tied Baker for third place and Bigfork was represented in three of the four championship matches.

Paul Wallin, one of Bigfork's two head co-coaches, said he wasn't surprised by his teams' success at the match.

"We work hard all season and have the highest expectations of the kids," Wallin said. "I think they expect good results and we expect the same. I think we were competitive in all the matches."

Bigfork's Bridger Mahlum played for the championship in the boys singles bracket, Jade Bosic represented the Valkyries while playing for the girls singles championship and Vikings Ryan Gembala and Evan Jordt played in the boys doubles championship. The Bigfork players fell in all three matches and therefore each finished second at state.

"You get to a final and you've worked hard to put yourself into the position where you could win a championship, what follows in the course of the next points, games and sets is sometimes in your control and sometimes not," Wallin said. "What you do is work hard to get yourself the opportunity to win."

Mahlum, a senior, fell to Spencer Ahlborn from Mission in a three-set match. He won the first set 6-2, but lost the next two 6-3 and 6-3.

"I really believe that if Bridger and the St. Ignatius player played five more times, Bridger would win three or more of the contests," Wallin said. "He didn't win that day, but he is a better player."

Bosic, a senior, lost to Cut Bank's Morgan McDivitt, 6-1, 6-4.

"Jade had a rocky first set and struggled to find a groove," said Paul Sullivan Bigfork's other co-coach. "What impressed me the most is that she fought back so hard in the second set. I think she should be very proud for leaving everything on the court. One of her greatest strengths this year has been her ability to grind it out and play as long as it takes. She played hard where most kids would've just rolled over and played dead. She played well, but the other girl just came out ahead."

Gembala and Jordt, who are both juniors, were defeated by Jace Kimmet and Nate Kavanagh from Cut Bank, 7-5, 6-4. Kimmet was Cut Bank's No. 1 singles player until the post-season.

"Ryan and Evan worked hard all season to improve enough to be in a position to compete for a state title," Wallin said. "They played one of their better matches of the year and had opportunities in both sets to win. Cut Bank deserves the credit. They played two very good games at the end of sets one and two."

Cinderella story

One of the biggest stories at the tournament was that of Bigfork's Dylan Reichenbach, who arrived at state as Bigfork's lowest seeded singles player and finished in fifth place.

"He is a very good counter puncher," Wallin said. "He is very strong mentally and he doesn't get down on himself when he is down in the match. The coaches felt going into the tournament that he would place."

Reichenbach defeated Loyola's Jonathan Finch 6-1 in the first set of his final match, but Finch won the second 6-4 and Reichenbach had to fight back in the tie-breaker, which he won 6-4.

With his colorful pajama pants that he wore for much of the tournament and his laid-back attitude, Reichenbach, a junior, didn't seem like much of a fierce competitor. However, he defeated Loyola's No. 1 singles player Cade Cross in the second round.

"Wally and I have been talking for a few weeks and saying that he was our ace in the hole for state," Sullivan said. "We didn't know how big it would be, but we knew he would do something big. For him to take down that kid from Loyola was huge. We were very proud of him."

Reichenbach's teammates were proud of him as well.

"The kid drank Mountain Dew every morning of the tournament and had Pop Tarts for breakfast," Mahlum said. "You wouldn't have guessed he would play the way he did. I love how he narrowed his focus for a few days to tennis and went out and gave it all he had and ended up placing fifth."

Sullivan said he thought it was Reichenbach's consistency and level attitude that got him so far.

"His basic game is just very effective against most high school players," Sullivan said. "He makes very few mistakes. He plays a very fundamental game that exploits the weaknesses of others. It takes not only a very skilled player, but one that can keep that level of play up for a very long time to beat Dylan and he used that to his advantage all tournament long."

The final match

"It has been a good rivalry," Mahlum said to Ahlborn as they shook hands following the championship match.

Ahlborn agreed and said, "It was the best one I had all season."

It was the fourth time that Mahlum and Mission's No. 1 boys singles player met this season. Mahlum won just one of those matches. In fact, Ahlborn was responsible for all but one of Mahlum's losses this season.

Saturday's match was of course the toughest defeat for Mahlum.

"I look back on this match and there are a lot of things I could've done differently," Mahlum said. "I think I played pretty solid tennis. He just stepped up his game in the second set. I think I got too caught up in the moment when I had that 6-2 set."

Mahlum said he moved through the bracket on his way to the championship as one might expect, with each match giving him more of a challenge than the previous. In accordance with this, he found his greatest competition prior to Ahlborn in his semifinals match with Conrad's Calen King.

"I lost the first set and I was a little surprised," Mahlum said. "I took a minute to myself and I did some thinking. I went back out and won the next two sets. It was actually a pretty fun match and a great way to have my last high school win go with a comeback in the semifinals."

Sullivan coached him through the semifinals match and said that it, like the rest of tournament, was a good representation of Mahlum's skills.

"Bridger played an outstanding tournament. His semifinals match was just beautiful playing on his part," Sullivan said. "He poured his heart and soul into that tournament. I don't think it went how we all hoped it would, but I couldn't be prouder of him. He just fought and fought and fought. He left everything on the court and, in some ways, that's the greatest thing you can ask for from one of your kids."

The toughest of opponents

Bosic had a strong final tournament of her high school career as well.

"I was really happy with how I played, minus the last game," she said. "I got into the championship round, which was really exciting."

In her second consecutive state appearance, Bosic showed improvement from last year in which she lost out in her first two matches.

Although she is happy with that, she said there are a few things she would have liked to have done differently in her championship match.

"I should have kept her (McDivitt) away from the net more and also I had a couple double faults and that didn't help," Bosic said. "I was also starting to get pretty tired from all the tennis matches the day before."

Bosic met McDivitt once previously this season in the Bigfork Flight Tournament and lost that match 6-0, 6-0.

Bosic said that felt good about how she did in the rest of her matches at state.

"My first two I did really well," Bosic said. "They weren't very long. My third match was a lot tougher and it went into a tiebreaker, but I won that set pretty quickly. It was a 2 1/2-hour match though. My fourth match was long too, but it wasn't as difficult."

All in the family

Jordt and Gembala have been doubles partners since they were freshmen, but they have been family since birth.

"Our freshman year we talked about how cool it would be to be doubles partners because we are cousins," Jordt said. "Wally ended up pairing us up and we've been playing together ever since."

This year's state appearance was the most success the duo has had as a doubles team, and Sullivan said their matches last weekend were the best he's seen.

"They played really smart doubles to get them to that championship match and they played well against some very tough opponents," Sullivan said. "They have a lot to look forward to next year I think."

Jordt also said he felt that he and Gembala peaked at just the right time.

"I felt like we did really well," Jordt said. "We played awesome the whole tournament and played some of the best tennis we've played all year. We just kind of fell apart during the championship match. The first set we were up 5-3 and I don't know what happened."

Even though they didn't win the big match, Jordt said that he and Gembala took away quite a bit from the experience.

"We knew we would do well and have a shot at state, but it was kind of a surreal thing playing in the championship," Jordt said. "Before we played, we just sat there and soaked it all in."

It wasn't an easy rode getting to the championship match, though, for the cousins from Bigfork.

"All of the matches before the championship went into three sets so they were all pretty challenging," Jordt said. "We had to give everything we had to come out on top."

Trophies for all

Bigfork's boys tennis team won the Class B State Championship its last year in Class B before moving to Class A in 1996. Now more than a decade later the boys were able to do it again their first year back. Their win ended Cut Bank's eight-year streak as the title holder.

"It was a little unexpected. I knew they had the skills and I knew they had the ability, but it is rare in a tournament to have everything fall into place the way it did for those boys," Sullivan said.

The Bigfork girls went into the state tournament as the Western B/C Divisional Champions. Bosic was the only one of the Valkyries to place, but several others made it into the quarter and semifinals.

"I would have loved to see the girls have a better result, but overall they had a good tournament. Carolina (Tietzel) made it pretty far and McKinze Shults did a good job of fighting her way through the consolation bracket. Hannah Barrett and Claire Wilken did a good job as well. They had a bye in the first round and it can be very hard to jump into the second round of play after a bye when everyone else has a match under their belt. The girls did a good job of staying alive in consolation play. I know that sometimes battling through the consolation bracket seems like a hopeless cause, but every one of those wins gives them more points and I think that's how they were able to place third. It was a good team effort of everyone racking up some points and Jade coming on big so that the girls could place."