PITTSBURG -- Fort Scott High School's tennis team finished second here at the Pittsburg Invitational, missing out on third place by one point after a tie-breaker was needed to sort out No. 2 doubles.

Labette County scored 13 points while Fort Scott finished with 12. Three teams finished 3-1 at No. 2 doubles. Pittsburg's team won the tie-breaker because it won 31 total games. Fort Scott's and Labette County's teams each won 28 games but LCHS won the head-to-head match-up.

Stephen Buntain won the No. 1 singles bracket, winning all his matches to improve to 15-4 on the season. He beat Iola's Kent Toland, 8-3, Columbus' Andrew Balantyne, 8-3, and shut out Pittsburg's Miles Crowley and Labette County's Denton Braden.

"Stephen had a great tournament starting it off with the win against Iola," Fort Scott head coach Lynn Barr said. "Toland is an excellent player -- one of only three players that have beaten Stephen this year -- but Stephen came out and played an good solid match, executed well and came back from a 1-2 deficit to win 7 of the next 8 games to take the match. He continued his solid play in the final three matches of the day."

Colton Grillott (5-8) took second place in No. 2 singles. He beat Michael Middleton of Iola, 8-1, then basted Thomas Niegisch of Columbus, 8-3. His next two matches went to tie-breakers. He defeated Clay Southern of Pittsburg, 8-7 (7-5) and lost to Travis Wells of Labette County, 8-7 (7-5).

"Colton is continuing to compete very well for us," Barr said. "He won his first three matches of the day, including a close tiebreaker win against Pittsburg when his opponent rallied back to get back in the match. The final match was between the two undefeated players on the day competing for first and Colton fell behind early, rallied back to force the tiebreaker but fell just short of the win. He is a tough competitor and showed a lot of determination in a tough match. Sometimes it's hard to remember he is just a freshman."

Gabe Quick and Brian Gorman (7-8) were also 3-1, taking second in No. 2 doubles on the aforementioned tie-breaker. They had two tie-breaker wins over Mike Griffin/Austin York of Pittsburg (who were filling in for a vacancy by Iola) 8-7 (11-9) and Jon Hamilton/Josh Vannurden of Pittsburg 8-7 (7-3). They also had an 8-1 win over Yoseph Lee/Deong Yoo of Columbus. Their loss was to Davis Warren/Joe Garrett of Labette County, 8-2.

"Gabe and Brian also continued to improve," Barr noted. "They struggled at times, but showed a lot of determination getting two of their three wins in tiebreakers. In the second one they had to come back from a 3-6 deficit just to get the match into a tiebreaker. For first year players, these two are doing an excellent job often competing against players with much more experience than they have."

Dustin Willard and Jeff Johnson were paired up for the first time this season and finished third in No. 2 doubles at 2-2. They defeated Iola's Chase Vaughn/Derek Danford and Columbus' Justin Kidd/Nick Thomas by identical 8-5 scores. They lost to Pittsburg's Ian Ivy/Daniel Griffin, 8-4, and LCHS' Bret Eckelberry/Jesse Mueller, 8-1.

"Dustin and Jeff teamed up for the first time winning in this tournament and played some of the better doubles we've seen at times," Barr said. "They were very solid at times and at times struggled. We have to give the teams they lost to credit. LC is an excellent team and the Pittsburg team played a very solid match against us. We really need our doubles teams, both the 1's and 2's to step up and give us some points when we get into the SEK Tournament next week."

The Tigers will go to Joplin Friday to take part in the Thomas Jefferson School tournament bright and early at 9 a.m. Saturday, they'll be up early again as they host the Fort Scott Invitational.

"We will be facing a tough challenge on Friday at Thomas Jefferson," Barr noted. "This is always a very strong tournament with Thomas Jefferson and Joplin both being very strong programs. This will give us a chance to see some different competition since there will probably be no other Kansas schools competing in this tournament. Then on Saturday we have to come right back and compete again in our tournament. Play should begin at 8:30 and run continuous throughout the day. Fort Scott will be playing all of their matches on the FSHS courts and we are looking forward to our first and only home appearance of the regular season."

NOTES -- Fort Scott has been named host of a Class 4A Regional Tournament, which will take place on May 1. Iola, Chanute, Ottawa and Paola have also been assigned to the tournament. In Class 4A, Regionals are a preliminary for a Sub-State that will be held the next day. The top four singles and doubles finishers will go to Independence May 2 to play for the right to go to the Class 4A State Tournament....