BREMERTON — Port Angeles and Sequim will send a total of four doubles teams and a singles player to state after qualifying at district this weekend.
Sequim won the district championship, thanks to two doubles teams.
Port Angeles’ Hayden Woods finished finished fifth, beating Olympic League champion Garrett Lawson 7-5, 6-4 to win his final match.
On the doubles’ side, Sequim’s Blake Wiker and Thomas Hughes, the Olympic League champions, won the district tournament, beating a No. 1 ranked duo from North Kitsap. The Sequim doubles’ team of Damon Little and Liam Payne finished third to qualify for state.
Also qualifying for state is the Port Angeles tandem of Bo Bradow and Milo Whitman, who finished fourth. Roughriders coach Brian Gunderson said Bradow and Whitman beat the No. 1 seed out of Franklin Pierce High School 6-1, 6-2 to make it into the semifinals.
“It was a great, great outcome for us,” Gunderson said. He pointed out that three out of the top four doubles’ teams at districts were from the Olympic Peninsula.
The 2A state tennis meet is not held until the spring. It’s possible this could cause some scheduling problems for the Port Angeles tennis players, all of whom play for the Roughriders baseball team. If that baseball team goes deep into the state tournament, and the Riders did qualify for state last year, it could conflict with the state tennis meet.
Gunderson said he and the players are aware there could be some scheduling conflicts, but they haven’t worried that much about it yet. Wiker is also likely to be playing in the state golf tournament, but that is several days before the state tennis meet.
