Evan Bombardier Punches Ticket to State Tennis
On Saturday, May 10th, the Concordia High School Boys Tennis Team traveled down to Scott City for their Class 4A Regional tournament. Senior Evan Bombardier, the #1 Singles player for the Panthers, officially punched his ticket to the Kansas State High School Tennis Championships in Winfield after finishing 4th in the regional.
Below are the Regional team standings:
McPherson High School 25
Scott City 17
Concordia 4
Pratt 3
Colby 3
Abilene 3
Ulysses 3
In Singles, Bombardier earned the #4 overall seed out of the 13 individual players. Evan started the day defeating the #13 seed Christian Garcia of familiar NCKL opponent Abilene. Bombardier won 6-0 and 6-1. Next, Bombardier defeated the #5 seed Tony Jagger of Colby 6-4 and 6-1. With the victory, it put Bombardier up against the #1 overall seed Cooper Bohme of McPherson, who was victorious 6-0 and 6-1. Falling to the third-place game, Bombardier faced #3 seed Reed Batterton of host Scott City. Batterton won two close matches, 6-4 and 6-3. Bombardier with the 4th place finish punched his ticket!
Also competing in Singles was Senior Hunter Nielander. Nielander was seeded #11 and faced the #6 overall seed, Nicholas Martinez of Ulysses. The Tiger ended Nielander's season with a close 6-4 match and then a 7-6 tiebreaker victory. Martinez went on to finish in 5th in Regionals and punched his ticket to State.
In Doubles the first Panther team of Carter Pickel and Noah Wood were seeded #11 out of the 11 teams competing. They were defeated by the #6 seed and familiar NCKL team of Pierce Casteel and Thad Pekarek of Abilene. The Cowboys ended the Panthers season with a 6-1 match and 6-2 finish. Abilene's team punched their ticket finishing in 6th.
Also competing in Doubles was the Panther duo of Eli Henderson and Jagger Johnson. Concordia was seeded 10th and faced off against the #7 seed, Ames Schielke and Stryker Shaw of Colby. The Panthers fought hard and won the first game 6-2. Colby would battle back and win a tight 7-5 contest. This sent the match to a decisive third set, where they were defeated in a long tiebreaker 15-13 to end their season.
Bombardier will compete at the Class 4A State Tennis Championships held at the Winfield-T.H. Vaughan Tennis Center in Winfield, Kansas beginning on Friday May 16th.