Olympic League standings

(as of Sept. 23)

Team Lg. Over.

North Kitsap 4-0 4-0

Klahowya 3-1 3-1

Sequim 3-1 3-1

Port Angeles 3-1 3-1

Bremerton 3-2 3-2

Kingston 2-3 2-3

Olympic 2-4 2-4

North Mason 0-3 0-3

Chimacum 0-5 0-5

While rainy weather has disrupted the schedule for Sequim High School’s boys tennis team, head coach Mark Textor’s young squad has made the most of the opportunities they’ve had so far by surging to a 3-1 start to the season with wins over Klahowya, Chimacum and Kingston before their winning streak was cut short by Bremerton.

The Wolves tennis team won 5-2 at Klahowya on Sept. 13, including straight sets wins for Nico Zingaro and the doubles teams of Sam Frymyer and Brenton Barnes, as well as Dallin Despain and Jackson VanDewege.

Connor Bear came back from a 3-6 loss in his first set to win his match with 7-5 and 6-4 sets, while Silas Thomas and Dominic Riccobene overcame a 7-5 first set loss to win 6-1 and 6-2 in their doubles match.

After falling 6-0 in the first set, Sequim’s Dustan Koch and Henry Hughes forced a tiebreaker against Klahowya’s top doubles team with a tiebreaker win in the second. Koch and Hughes couldn’t keep their rally going, however, falling 6-2 in the final set. Ryan Tolberd had similar woes in his singles match, dropping the first set 6-3 before fighting back to a 7-5 win to force a tiebreaker, which he ultimately dropped by a point in a back-and-forth battle.

Sweeping foes

Against Chimacum at home on Sept. 16, the Wolves didn’t drop a single set, only giving up seven points across five matches. Thanks to a pair of forfeited matches, the Wolves took the contest 7-0.

Playing on the road in Kingston on Sept. 18 saw the Wolves saw similar results, sweeping the night at 7-0 and again not dropping a set across seven matches.

Kingston’s Buccaneers were somewhat harder to put down with several sets going 6-4 or 7-5 before a winner was determined, but ultimately no Sequim player had to go to a third set to earn wins.

Textor praised Zingaro and Bear for stepping up on what he’s referred to as a “very young” team and exceeding expectations.

Zingaro has established himself as the number one singles player on the team, while Koch and Hughes have cemented themselves as the squad’s top doubles team, he said.

Stumbling against Bremerton

Sequim’s good run came to an end on Sept. 19 against a very talented Bremerton team that performed well a year ago, losing 5-1 at home with one singles match being called off due to worsening weather.

The Wolves’ only match win came from the No. 4 doubles team of Thomas and Riccobene, with only Zingaro and the Koch-Hughes doubles team able to force a third set in their matches.

“I feel like we always learn a lot more from a loss than a win,” Textor said after the loss. “Bremerton has a strong team this year. When you play better players it helps to identify areas we need to improve on.

“This week we have two very strong opponents when we play Port Angeles and North Kitsap. So far I have been very pleased with the effort and improvement of the boys.”

Textor has spoken several times of this being a team that will learn and grow a lot this year, and despite the setback against Bremerton he seemed to be pleased with the results of that learning so far.

Looking ahead

Sequim was slated to play at Port Angeles on Sept. 24 — results were not available at press time. An away match at North Mason on Sept. 23 was postponed because of rain; it was rescheuled for Oct. 1.

The Wolves host North Kitsap on Sept. 25, the first in a series of four home matches out of five that include Sept. 26 versus Olympic, Oct. 2 versus Port Angeles and Oct. 3 versus Klahowya.