Drake, Addington go unbeaten in doubles at Pittsburg, improve to 8-4 on season

PITTSBURG -- Davis Drake and Gage Addington went unbeaten in No. 1 doubles here Thursday as they won their division in the Pittsburg Invitational at the Pittsburg State University courts.

"It was great to finally get a day with some decent weather," Fort Scott head coach Lynn Barr said. "We still have to keep improving and trying to eliminate more of our unforced errors, but overall I felt like we had a good effort out of everyone. Davis and Gage had a very good tournament."

Drake and Addington (8-4 for the season) opened up with a pair of relatively easy wins. They shut out Iola's Stephen McDonald/Mason Key and took an 8-2 decision from Columbus' Justin Garrison/Ben Miller.

In the third round, Drake and Addington got by Pittsburg's Nick Powers/Micah Hashman, 8-6. Finally, they downed Labette County's Colton Kessler/Dakota Lewis, 8-4.

"(Pittsburg) was a close match but Davis and Gage really stepped up on some big points and made some plays when they needed to," Barr said. "This was something they had trouble with at Spring Hill on Tuesday night, so it was nice to see them take that next step and make a few more of those plays in this match. They started out a little slow in the final match, but closed out the night playing some pretty solid tennis in a nice win over a pretty good LCHS team."

Alex Combs, playing his first varsity matches, went 1-3 in No. 2 singles. His victory was a shutout of Iola's Tyler Alloway. His second match against Columbus' Aaron Napier went to a tie-breaker before Napier won 8-7 (7-3). Pittsburg's Logan Benham shut out Combs and Labette County's Josh Mathes took an 8-1 win.

"Alex did a nice job in his first-ever varsity action," Barr said. "He has the potential to help us at the season progresses. He opened with a very solid win and then lost a very close match, one that could have easily gone either way in the second match. His third match was against a very good player and the final match was really rough because it was getting dark and the lighting conditions on the PSU courts are terrible. It was surprising either player could do much in those conditions."

Hayden Barr was 0-4 at No. 1 singles. He lost to Tyler Heinrich of Iola, 8-4, Cody Spainhower of Columbus, 8-1, Hank Cloninger of Pittsburg, 8-0, and Aidan Carter of Labette County, 8-4.

"Although Hayden went 0-4 for the day, he hit some good shots at times," Barr said. "But then (he) hurt himself at times with errors. He did face a couple of good players in his matches against Columbus and Pittsburg. The No. 1 singles spot is always going to be a tough position, pretty much always facing one of the opponents best players, but as long as we play hard and do our best that is all we can ask."

Jesse Guerro and D.J. Blethen were 0-4 in No. 2 doubles. They lost to Iola's Bryan Mueller/Colby Works, 8-2; Columbus' Joel Zwahlen/Ross Westervelt, 8-3; Pittsburg's Josh Dial/Jake Creech, 8-0; and Labette County's Caleb Mathes/Caleb Webster, 8-4.

"Jesse and D.J. continue to show improvement in spite of their record for the day," Barr said. "They played pretty well at times, and then hurt themselves with some unforced errors. The big goal is to just keep playing hard and trying to improve with each match."

The Tigers hosted a best-of-9 dual with Nevada Friday afternoon. The results of that dual will be presented in Tuesday's edition.

On Tuesday, the Fort Scott varsity will be in Parsons for the Labette County Invitational. Action begins at 3 p.m.