With winds over 20mph and temperatures in the mid 40s, the Lansing Christian boys tennis team qualified for the MHSAA boys State Championship for the first time in school history today in Portland. Overall the team finished 3rd and received 12 points needing 10 to qualify. They were led by Junior captain Isaac Johnson who won the regional title at #1 singles by defeating Flint Powers 7-5, 6-1. Freshman #2 singles player Isaac Haley also won the regional by defeating Lansing Catholic’s Justin Stanley in the final in three sets 3-6, 6-4, 6-4. Also reaching the #3 singles final for Lansing Christian was Kyle Medcoff.
The Lansing Christian tennis program co-ops with Leslie and New Covenant Christian School and had only 4 players returning from last year. Co-coach Matthew Haley (a former local Court One tennis teaching professional) was worried the program would collapse this year and decided to step in and try and build the program back up. “I recruited a top coach that I knew (Nate Schwarzbek) to co-coach with me and the partnership has been a great one. We started asking kids who had never played to come out for tennis and just give it a try. We figured if we could get the bodies, then we could teach them the game”. Haley also was given a Coach of the Year award by the #29 regional. “It is something that all of these kids should be proud of knowing they were the first to accomplish this goal at their schools by working hard at this great lifetime sport” said Haley. The team will compete in the D4 Championship next Friday and Saturday at Kalamazoo College.