2015-16 school year in review: tennis

BY ANDY KRUTSINGER

Mt. Pleasant News

Our next stop in the journey back in time to the 2015-16 sports season takes us to the tennis courts.

The sport of tennis is one of just two school-sponsored sports that are only played by one of our area schools, Mt. Pleasant High School.

Both the Mt. Pleasant boys? and girls? teams combined new faces with a few returners in their six varsity spots, and a season of ups and downs ended with one of the Panther athletes making his state tournament debut.

Mt. Pleasant boys: The 2016 tennis season saw the rise of junior Ben Zihlman, who took over the number one spot on the boys? team early in the year and eventually parlayed his regular season success into a berth at state.

Zihlman spent the majority of the year in the No. 1 spot and also found success in doubles play with Matt Thorne. The two finished second in the conference to Ft. Madison, but Zihlman shined in the singles tournament and took home Mt. Pleasant?s second individual SEC title in a row.

The Panthers were able to scoop up a third place finish in doubles and a few in singles at the SEC tourney, but finished fourth overall.

At districts, it was Zihlman again who shined. He dominated his first two matches and won the next in three sets to punch his ticket to the state tournament. He was eventually stopped at state, falling in the first round of the winner?s bracket and consolation bracket.

The Mt. Pleasant boys finished the year 3-8 with their lone conference win coming against Keokuk at home in late April.

Mt. Pleasant girls: The Panther girls saw a big improvement in their overall record in 2016, going 4-4 in the regular season.

The Panthers swept Ft. Madison, 2-0, and split with Fairfield, 1-1 during the year. They also competed hard against Keokuk, narrowly missing out on a split with a 5-4 loss in their final SEC game of the year.

Aline Thiengmany jumped to the No. 1 spot for the Panthers this season, and MPCHS was carried by their depth. The Panther four through six spots were consistently among the best in the SEC.

At the conference championship in Fairfield, Mt. Pleasant finished in a tie with Ft. Madison for third place. The Trojans won the conference by two points and were just four points ahead of Mt. Pleasant in the final tally.

The 2016 season set both teams up for a potentially exciting 2017. With only two seniors from each team?s every day top six, both could bring back over half the varsity lineup next season.