GREENE COUNTY
The Lake Oconee Academy boys tennis team traveled up to Berry College last Saturday to take on Taylor County for the GHSA Class A Division II state championship, and for the second year in a row, the Titans came out on top.
Head coach Tom Imhof’s team swept the Vikings in three-straight matches for the program’s second-consecutive state title, and he acknowledged that having experienced a state championship match last year really helped his team go into the contest prepared.
“Every player was peaking at the right time, and it definitely helped that we were there last year,” Imhof said. “We didn’t go into it thinking that it was some big event with a lot of people, we went into it to take care of business. Taylor County just seemed to be intimidated by the whole thing.”
Taylor County came into the finals with some momentum after defeating Aquinas High School 3-2 in their semifinal match, but Lake Oconee Academy shut that down as soon as the day began.
First singles player Cooper Ciavola dominated his opponent in straight sets, 6-0, 6-0 to give the Titans an early 1-0 lead to start the afternoon.
Fellow senior and third singles player Garrett Payne also swept his opponent in straight sets in undefeated fashion and gave the Titans a 2-0 lead while the last three matches were being played.
It ended up being the second doubles pairing of Wyatt Imhof and Christian Moore to bring the match home for Lake Oconee Academy after they defeated their opponents 6-2, 6-2.
Not to mention, second singles player Maddox Cantrell was ahead in his match 6-0, 3-2, and the first doubles pairing of Justin Zahler and Adam Kalmanowicz were in front 6-3, 3-0 in theirs when the finals ended.
Overall, Imhof credits the program’s recent success to the senior group of Ciavola, Cantrell, Payne and Zahler, and believes they helped the team come together and play confidently all season.
“This senior class helped build the foundation of Lake Oconee Academy tennis. The four guys started back in middle school as a club, and they played all three years of middle school and all four years of high school,” Imhof said. “They were the nucleus of this team, and they’ve been through the ‘war’ together. They worked well with each other and really gave the younger guys someone to look up to. Everyone knew their place on the team with no animosity or jealousy, and they ended up winning together.”
The road to the Titans’ second-straight state title wasn’t as easy as they made it seem either.
Imhof believed that it was the non-region scheduling at the beginning of the year, and the difficult path they had in the playoffs having to face teams like Charlton County and Seminole County that helped build his team’s confidence in order to come away with a state championship.
“We knew heading into the semifinals that Seminole County was going to be our toughest opponent in the tournament to that point because we had also played them last year in the quarterfinals. Once the guys won that in pretty dominant fashion in a tough match, they were able to look forward to the state match,” Imhof said. “Even the region championship against Aquinas was tough, seeing as how we only won 3-2, but I think our non-region also helped show us we weren’t all that we thought we were when we had to go play these 3A and 4A powerhouses.”
With the 2023 season complete, the Titans will return a little over half of its roster, along with adding kids from the middle school level heading into their freshman year.
Imhof understands that the team is slowly becoming one of the premiere programs in the state, and he’s excited to see what next year’s team has in store.
“Our senior group leaves behind good leadership with some of the younger guys that played big roles for us this year. A lot of our underclassmen were already out trying to recruit classmates for next year before this one even ended. They’re that excited,” Imhof said. “Now that we’re having success as a program and people see that, success breeds success, so now we have other good athletes that are getting interested in tennis.”